I'd Die Laughing
by CreativelySpecial
Summary: "At least if I chose Damon, I'd die laughing instead of in boredom." Note: NOT for team Stefan fans. Rated M for language and other fun things.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Hi! I'm back with a new story. Basically, Elena meets Stefan and instantly dislikes him because of his boringness. She meets Damon, and, well… you know how it goes. As usual, don't read if swearing offends you.**

**Also: All the characters are like the ones in the book, not the TV show. I saved a couple from the TV show, though, so it's easier to understand for those of you who haven't read the books. Meredith isn't in this story (her sensibleness pisses me off.) **

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries.**

** Chapter One**

Today was the beginning of a whole new school year—the beginning of a whole new year of competition.

Being the most popular girl in school, it was automatically my position to take down the second most popular girl in school: Caroline Forbes. She had bronze hair and cat-like green eyes that guys drooled over, but my golden blonde hair and piercing blue eyes had boys running after me when I walked through the hall.

Everything I did was automatically a competition. And I was up for it every time.

"Hey, Bonnie," I yelled from my window as I saw her approach my house. We had walked to school together for everyday since first grade.

Bonnie was my best friend. She was extremely pale with soft, big blue eyes and a shock of red hair. In summary, she looked very, very Irish.

She waved and walked in the door, and I heard Aunt Jenna ask her if she wanted any pancakes.

"I do!" I yelled, in a hurry to get to them before Jeremy ate them all. Jeremy, my younger brother, was pretty average looking: tall, brown hair, brown eyes. Not to sound bitchy, but I honestly don't see how we were related. You see; Jeremy's also a stoner. He doesn't have a girlfriend, and he's not popular, and he hardly has any friends.

You see what I mean? I seriously don't see how we're related!

I got two pancakes and some eggs before Jeremy—just as I predicted—swarmed into the room and destroyed the rest of it.

"Ewe, Jeremy! You're going to throw up if you eat all that!" I scolded him, to no avail.

"Actually, no, he won't," Aunt Jenna piped in. Aunt Jenna was the coolest parent on the planet. My parents died when I was two, and when Jeremy was, like, three weeks old. They crashed their car into a river and didn't make it out alive.

Of course, it still hurts to talk about it. But I go to the cemetery where they're buried everyday with Bonnie, so it's not like I have to cry myself to sleep every night thinking about them. They wouldn't have wanted that.

After Bonnie and I finished eating, we were out the door and on our way to school. Along the way, I saw the most beautiful, huge, black crow staring me down with deep green eyes. I'd never seen anything like it.

"Bonnie, look!" I whispered, pointing at the bird. By the time Bonnie turned around, though, it was gone. Like it vanished into think air.

"Did you see it?" I asked her. Maybe I was just going insane, after all.

"See what, Elena?"

I shook my head. I must've imagined it; there was no way a bird could've moved that fast. "You know what? Never mind. We should hurry or we'll be late."

Of course, this wasn't true. We always left early so we could get good spots in homeroom, so time was never an issue. When we got to school, everything seemed the same: the ugly lockers, most of which were falling off their hinges; the drinking fountains that didn't even work because it would shoot the water way above your head; the white marble floor that was always slippery from the drinking fountain; and, of course, the mean, ugly secretary that would give you a detention if she caught you looking at her. I knew that from experience.

"Good morning, Ms. Summers," I greeted her pleasantly, determined to get on her good side this year.

"Yeah. Here's your schedule, Gilbert. Don't be late."

I struggled not to roll my eyes. "Thank you."

I found my locker combination written at the top of my schedule and got it opened almost immediately, which was always a good way to start the day. I arranged my books and makeup until it looked nice and tidy, and taped all of my pictures along the outside walls.

Once I was happy with my final product, I grabbed my Chemistry, Trigonometry and English books and was ready to start the first day of my senior year.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a new boy talking to Ms. Summers. He was tall, with light brown hair and a strong jaw. His eyes were green, like leaves in the forest, and his full lips were set in a tentative smile, like he wasn't sure what he was doing here.

"Bonnie, look!" I hissed at her. "Hot guy alert!"

She raised her eyebrow at me skeptically, before looking where my hand was pointing.

"Wow," she mouthed. I knew what she meant. Finding a hot guy in Mystic Falls was like winning the lottery; it just didn't happen.

The hot guy walked in the opposite direction of where we were standing, and I quickly recovered from my awe.

"Okay, let's get to class," I sighed, not in the mood to go anywhere.

Along the way, I ran into none other than Caroline Forbes, queen of all things bitchy.

"Caroline!" I forced out from between my clenched teeth.

"Elena," she greeted me coldly. She couldn't even find it in herself to smile.

"Are you running for Miss Mystic Falls this year?" I asked her, trying to make conversation. We both ran every year; I won every year.

"Of course. I do every year." She stared me down suspiciously. "Why? Aren't you?"

"Of course I am." I forced another smile, but it probably turned out as a grimace.

"Well, I should get to class…"

"Yeah." She walked away. The only thing I liked about Caroline was that she was blunt and to the point.

"Bitch," Bonnie muttered under her breath.

I nodded. "Let's go."

We walked into the classroom to find it practically empty, give or take a few nerdy kids that wanted to get a spot in the front row. Because they're so coveted every year…

I picked a spot in the second to last row, which was far enough back for the teacher to not bother me, but far enough forward to read all the notes on the board and projector.

Bonnie, from her chair next to me, let out a tiny squeal and pointed to the door, where the hot new kid walked in.

"Yes," I muttered. Now I could taunt Caroline by having the hottest boy in school.

He walked right past me, without even blinking when he saw me (very unusual) and sat in the middle of the very back row. _He must have good eyesight_, I noted to myself.

By the time all the rest of the kids had walked in, the bell had already rung and Mrs. Sasquatch hadn't showed up yet.

Mrs. Sasquatch was the meanest and ugliest teacher in the school. She didn't talk; she screeched, like nails on a chalkboard. Her ass swung around behind her like a bulldozer, always hitting people. She wore these skirts and blouses that looked like they were from a different century—but not in a pretty, antique sort of way.

I think I accidentally muttered, "Ewe" under my breath as she walked by me, studying each student carefully.

"We have a new student," she finally announced, once she had been around the entire classroom and dragged her fat butt up to the front again. "Say hello." That's another thing about her: she doesn't ask; she orders.

"Hello," we all greeted him in monotone voices.

"Stefan, is it?"

"Yes, ma'am. Stefan Salvatore."

She rolled her beady eyes. "Yeah. Whatever. Tell us something about yourself, please."

"I'm from Italy."

"Awesome." She didn't say it like it was "awesome"—quite the opposite, in fact.

Bitch.

The rest of class was fairly uneventful, consisting of her telling us all about how amazing Shakespeare was.

Once English finally ended, we were released from her evil claws and moved on to our new classes. I didn't see Stefan or Bonnie again until lunch came, and, for the first time in…ever, I didn't have any gossip whatsoever to share.

"Bonnie!" I shouted, grabbing a table for us. I always packed a vegetable sandwich on whole wheat bread with an apple and a cookie, everyday. I sat down and immediately started devouring the less than tasty sandwich, starving.

"Excuse me?" a quiet voice asked. I looked up to see Stefan Salvatore leaning over me (not in a creepy way; it was just because he was tall).

And I had a slice of carrot hanging out of my mouth. In my haste to get it out, I made a desperate noise and slapped at it, causing it to go into my bra.

"Oh, fuck," I whispered to myself, before answering, "Um, hi".

"Hello. Is this seat taken?" he asked, pointing to Bonnie's chair.

"Um, yeah. You can sit in this one, though." I pointed to the one that was next to mine.

"Thank you." He sat down, and I noticed that he didn't have any food.

"Aren't you hungry?" I asked.

He smiled, like he had some kind of inside joke. "No. Not particularly."

Bonnie plopped down across from us, eyeing Stefan like he was a piece of meat.

"Hey, Stefan." She had her flirty voice in full force.

"Hello…Bonnie, is it?"

She looked miffed for a second before her face smoothed out. "Yeah. Where are you from?"

Did she miss the entire conversation in English? Bonnie was _so _unobservant.

I don't mean to sound rude, but…Stefan was boring. He droned on and on and on about how amazing Italy was, and Bonnie sat there, literally drooling like she was in a trance.

"Yeah, I love Italian sports cars!" she shouted. I snorted; she didn't even know the name of _one _Italian sports car.

"How about you, Elena?"

"Yeah, I'm not really into cars." I hope I didn't sound cold and rude.

He shrugged. He continued talking to Bonnie for the rest of lunch, trying to involve me whenever he could.

"I'm going to go get some water…" I finally said, desperate for an excuse to get out of there. His presence made me feel sort of uncomfortable.

Now, I went through boys faster than Ms. Sasquatch's teaching when she was in a hurry to get out of the English classroom, so lust was not exactly foreign to me. This didn't feel like lust; it felt like a dull sort of connection. Maybe I was supposed to learn something from him or meet someone through him.

Shuddering, I walked back into the cafeteria, bracing myself for what was to come. They were still sitting there, debating about some topic that I completely zoned out on.

Bonnie giggled every three seconds, making it impossible to _completely _ignore them. I did my best to focus my mind on the Trig homework that Mr. Goff had assigned us.

Mr. Goff was a short old man that walked like the hunchback of Notre dam. He had gray-white hair, wore plaid golfing shorts and polo shirts, and had a big brown mole on his left cheek. Still, Mr. Goff was sweet and actually took the time to explain things to us, which was something that I honestly couldn't say about the rest of the teachers.

"Elena?" Stefan asked me, looking down curiously.

"Yeah?"

He pointed to the empty cafeteria. "The bell just rang."

Wow. I really had embraced my math. "Oh. Thanks."

"Where are you off to?"

Ugh. Why can't he just be gone already?

"Um, history. You?"

He smiled. "History." As I stood up, he was kind enough to pick up my books for me and stack them on top of his.

"Oh, Stefan, you don't have to do that!"

He grinned. "It's my pleasure."

I sighed and followed him as he swiftly exited from the cafeteria, trying to hurry so we wouldn't be late for class. Mr. Brown hated me; so hurrying not to be late wasn't an issue for me.

We walked into the classroom to find it about half full, meaning that we could've taken our sweet time walking if we'd wanted to. I _didn't_ really want to, though.

"Thank you so much, Stefan," I told him as he neatly stacked my books on my desk.

"Of course. Maybe I'll see you around, Elena."

_Hopefully not. _"Yeah, totally."

I sat down and felt guilty for hating on Stefan for the rest of class; he had been nothing but kind, polite and respectful to me and all I could think about was hoping that I wouldn't see him around? I was such an asshole!

When the final bell for the day rang, I was out the door before anyone else was out of his or her seat. I hid my face in my locker, feeling like I was being watched for some reason. It was ridiculous, of course; who could possibly be watching me?

I looked around and saw the same crow out the window that I had seen earlier that day. My eyes widened considerably, causing a couple of people to stare at me before carrying on down the hallway.

So I hadn't been imagining it?

Bonnie came up from behind me and said, "You ready to go?"

I distractedly answered her, "Yeah. Just one second."

I turned around, only to find that the crow was gone again.

I found myself in the kitchen, with Bonnie and Aunt Jenna, after I had walked home in a daze. What were the odds of seeing such a beautiful, unique crow only to have it vanish before anyone else could see it, twice in one day?

I knew that the odds weren't likely and that someone was either going on or I was going insane; and I also knew that it was probably the latter.

I picked up one of the peanut butter balls Aunt Jenna had made and shoved it in my mouth, staring out the window in search of the bird.

"What are you looking at?" Aunt Jenna finally asked.

"Oh…nothing." I didn't see a need to share with her my supposed insanity.

As I chewed the sticky peanut butter, my mind was on how much I had instantly disliked Stefan.

"Aunt Jenna? Have you ever met someone that you just instantly disliked for some reason? And you can't figure out why?"

She snorted. "Yeah; one too many of them. Why?"

"Oh, no reason."

Bonnie started drabbling on about how _amazing _Stefan was, and I sipped from my glass of water to prevent myself from saying anything I would regret.

Aunt Jenna looked at me. "What do you think of him, Elena?"

"Uh, you know…" I was never able to lie.

"Uh-huh. Enough said." She closed a random drawer with her hip and gave me one last knowing glance before gracefully stalking out of the kitchen.

"How could you _not _like him, Elena? He's, like, so hot!"

"I never said I didn't like him. And I guess I just don't see it." At first, I had thought he was attractive; when I looked closer at him, I realized that there were just certain things that I didn't like about him. His nose was this square thing that looked like it had been stuck on his face because no one knew what to do with it. His hair had these weird curly-spike things, making his face look rounder than it would if he actually had a flattering haircut.

The list would go on and on if you got me started, so please don't. I need to continue on with my awesome story.

"You're secretly crushing on him, aren't you?" She let out this girly little squeal that belonged in a horror movie and started hopping up and down.

"No, Bonnie. I'm not."

I walked upstairs, and she used her short height to duck under me and run up the rest of them. Apparently she had decided to go into hyper mode without telling me about it.

"Hurry up!" she shouted.

I rolled my eyes. "Sorry. Some of us aren't nimble little pixies that come from Never Land."

"Where the hell is Never Land?"

Wow. "Never mind. Look, let's just get our homework done before dinnertime, okay? I don't want to be behind on the second day."

"Since when did you start caring about homework?" she muttered, plopping down on my floor.

"Since I have to beat Caroline Forbes at _everything _this year. Even though she's obviously stupid as hell, we have to insure that there won't be any issues."

Bonnie was never one for competition, so she didn't completely understand why I had to be better than Caroline at everything, even if she did share my intense hatred towards her.

"Whatever. I don't understand this problem…"

We sluggishly completed our homework; we had a surprisingly large amount, even if it was senior year. When Aunt Jenna told us that dinner was ready, we had our nails painted and gossip exchange completed. For the first time either, neither one of us had exciting news: Matt, the captain of the football team and my former boyfriend, was going out with Caroline, captain of the cheerleaders. How very cliché.

We both decided that, despite my obvious dismay, I should go out with Stefan. Just because he wasn't interesting didn't mean he wasn't hot, which was all anyone really cared about.

Aunt Jenna somehow managed to burn the spaghetti (it would be fair to say that she's not the best cook), so we ordered a big pizza with cheese and ate it while watching television. Jeremy made stupid comments about how ugly people were on MTV, and Aunt Jenna laughed whenever someone danced inappropriately; and that, sadly, was more often than not.

Bonnie squealed with delight when Justin Bieber came on. The rest of us groaned as he went on about his 'baby, baby, baby, oh', over and over again, until Ludacris finally came in. Apparently, Jeremy enjoyed his songs, "Move, Bitch" and "My Chick Bad". Personally, rap wasn't my favorite.

When that torture finally ended, it was nearing ten o'clock. Bonnie packed up her stuff and headed home, calling over her shoulder that she would be there at the same time tomorrow morning; I don't even know why she bothered, though, because we all already knew that she would be.

"Jeremy, do the dishes," Aunt Jenna ordered him.

"I just did them last night!"

"Actually, I did them last night." It never hurts to point a fact like that out, as I have learned over the years.

"Night, Aunt Jenna," I called over my shoulder.

" 'Night, kid."

I trudged up the stairs, tired from a long first day back at school.

It was late at night. I was running through the cemetery that my parents were buried in, and I was running from something; the problem was that I had no idea what that _something _was.

"Here, Elena," a creepy voice called it. It sounded vaguely familiar.

I stopped dead in my tracks. "Stefan?"

My subconscious realized faster than my brain did that I was speaking with Stefan Salvatore, the new boy from school. Was _he _who I had been running from?

"Hello, Elena."

Literally out of nowhere, he was standing in front of me, taking a casual but obviously dominant stance. "How are you?'

"I…I'm fine, thank you. What are we doing out here?"

He chuckled darkly. "Well, Elena, that's kind of a long story…"

He transformed into an ugly, demonic looking thing, lunging at me. I felt my bones snap and heard myself scream before waking up in a cold sweat, feeling terror and adrenaline rushing through my veins. I felt my arms and legs, breathing in a sigh of relief when I felt that all of my bones were still healthy and in tact.

Still heavily panting, I forced my numb legs to quickly walk to the bathroom, flipping on the light switch and turning on the water faucet. I filled up one of the paper cups that we kept in the shelves behind the mirror and drank it deeply, the cold water running down my dry, warm throat calming my nerves instantly.

Still, as I braced myself by leaning over the sink, something didn't feel quite right: reality or a nightmare.

For obvious reasons, I was wide-awake and ready when Bonnie walked through the door. I had already packed all my books in my bag, taken a shower and had done my makeup before five o'clock, which was about two hours ago.

My body was heaving and limping heavily as I dragged myself down the stairs, exhausted from my small panic attack last night. I had never fallen asleep after that, and drinking coffee only made me feel hyper and jittery, as opposed to the calmness it usually brought me.

"Elena, you look exhausted!"

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, Bonnie. I thought I'd done a good job with the concealer."

"You can never hide what's there completely."

"Aunt Jenna…that actually sounded wise and smart." THAT was a rarity.

She smacked my ass as she passed me, getting some milk from the refrigerator. "I've been known to be wise and smart every once in a while."

"When?" Bonnie murmured, earning a glare.

"Did you guys get all your homework done?"

I rolled my eyes. "Nice parenting skills; very stern. Anyways, yes, we did. I have to get straight A's to beat Caroline Forbes this year."

"Caroline Forbes? I heard she was stupid."

"She is. That just makes it easier for me to win."

"You seriously need to lay off the competition for once, Elena. High school is actually supposed to be fun, believe it or not."

"Oh, yes. School filled with mean bitches that can't keep comments to themselves, teachers with asses like bulldozers and creepy new students. What a joy it is."

She frowned. "Who's the creepy new student?"

Oops. I probably should've kept that to myself. "He's not creepy; he's super hot. And his name's Stefan Salvatore."

"Shut up, Bonnie. We're going to be late."

"No, we're not."

Aunt Jenna snorted. "Bonnie, the art of subtlety is obviously lost on you. Elena's trying to tell you that you need to leave before the old lady asks you for any details on the hot new guy."

"Thank you, Aunt Jenna. Let's go."

"But you didn't eat anything…"

I dragged Bonnie away from her cereal and out the door, shaking my head at the stupidity of the conversation I had just participated in and ignoring my rumbling and angry stomach.

I scowled at the crow that was, once again, staring at me.

"Shoo!" I shouted at it, so beyond done with its strange appearances. "Go on! Get the hell out of here!"

"Elena," Bonnie hissed, looking around for people watching us. "You're making a scene! And what are you yelling at?"

I made the mistake of taking my eyes off the bird for a split second, and that was all it took; the crow was gone.

"Damn it!" I screeched, trying to find it.

"Let's go, Elena." Bonnie sounded nervous as she dragged me all the way to school, like she was afraid I was going to bite her or something.

"What's going on?" she demanded, pulling me to my locker. I pulled my wrist free and massaged it, not pleased with how this fucker of a day was turning out.

"It's nothing." Nothing really didn't cover it, but I didn't want her to think I was going insane; and I probably was going insane.

"Nothing, my ass." If there was one thing Bonnie wasn't, it was stupid. "Now tell me what's going on."

"No." I grabbed my books and shoved my bag into the locker, stalking off to English and leaving a hurt and betrayed Bonnie in my wake.

When I walked in the classroom, Stefan Salvatore was already sitting down, staring at the front of the classroom, and looking bored. Right away, I started getting flashbacks from my dream that last night. I instantly felt sick to my stomach, and I sat down before I could throw up all over the desk.

I clutched my stomach, dry heaving at the memory of how I imagined my bones breaking as he crushed me, relieved that I hadn't eaten anything. I closed my eyes and laid my head on the table, concentrating on not looking at him.

"Take out your assignments," Ms. Sasquatch yelled as she walked in the classroom, not bothering with niceties. People did as they were directed, but I felt too sick to bend down; I felt claustrophobic, like Stefan was leaning over me and not letting me breath.

"Miss Gilbert, I don't have your assignment."

I looked up at her and her eyes widened. "Oh, my. Why don't you go to the nurse?"

I simply nodded, even though I had no intentions of going to the nurse, and ran for the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and saw a disgusting green tint to my skin, which was the final straw in making me throw up all over the sink.

I felt the tears running down my cheeks, but I couldn't understand why they were there. Stefan had been perfectly nice to me…why did I have to have that horrid dream?

I sat down, putting my head between my knees and counting to ten over and over again. There was no need to be afraid of Stefan Salvatore and I needed to get that in my brain that very moment.

I stood up, needing the support of the sink because my knees were weak and wobbly, and cleaned up the counter while holding my breath; I didn't want to get sick _again_.

I fixed up any blemishes that had become clear and headed back to class. I kept my head down, avoiding anyone's eyes as I made my way to my desk. She didn't ask me for my assignment again and I didn't offer it; we had a mutual understanding.

When the bell rang, I shot out of my seat and fled for my next class, which equaled freedom.

I continued like this for the rest of the day: head down, not talking to anyone as I made my way through the day. Bonnie didn't sit next to me at lunch, and I didn't bother her. History was the worst, but I got through it by closing my eyes unless I needed to look at my worksheet.

My new goal for the year was to avoid Stefan Salvatore.

As I walked home, for the second time that day I saw the crow.

**AN: Is our favorite vampire playing mind games with Elena? Please take the time to review, if you have a chance. I would really appreciate it! New update next Monday. **

**-Evangeline**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: So I know I said that I wouldn't update until next Monday, but I was bored and felt like writing today…thus, this chapter was born. Updates should become regular after this one. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Two**

I was running through the forest again, but this time I immediately knew that I was running from Stefan. The trees were flying by me and the twigs caused my bare feet to cut and bleed, leaving trails of blood behind me on the grass. I still didn't know why I was running from him; I just knew that I had to.

I saw a playground ahead and ran for it, the woodchips piercing my delicate skin. The world around me was spinning as I sat myself down, cringing as I pulled the sharp objects out of my feet. I felt quietness surround me and I knew that he was close, waiting for me to make another move.

As I looked down at my tattered dress, something dark caught my attention. _Don't look Elena. Don't look. _Despite my advice to myself, I looked down and screamed, immediately feeling bile rise in my throat. Bonnie was lying there, still, with her throat torn open and her own blood spilled around her like a ravine.

The tears slipped down my face as I looked at my best friend, lying there, never to see the world again. Her dead eyes were wide open and staring at me.

"Why are you doing this?" I called out, wanting it all to be over. I couldn't take this torture anymore.

Stefan was right behind me, his arms around my shoulders. "Why am I doing this? Because you're _mine_. One day you'll see that."

I felt my skin tear as he bit into me, and the only thing my eyes could see was darkness.

For the second night in a row, I woke up, sweat pooled around me, and cried for the rest of the night.

Bonnie didn't come the next day; that was fine with me. I wasn't going to school, anyway.

I knew that I was being a wimp as I went downstairs and poured myself a glass of ice water, but I didn't care; I was exhausted from not sleeping for two nights and I needed a day off.

Aunt Jenna walked down the stairs, looking surprised to see. "Elena? What are you doing up so early?"

I shrugged. "I couldn't sleep. And, by the way, I'm not going to school today."

She shrugged this time. "Fine. Just as long as you realize that today could change the rest of your life. You could ruin it by being lazy and staying home…but, then again, what do I know? I'm just an old lady."

"Not much, apparently," I snapped as I stormed past her, almost crawling up the stairs from lack of strength. I flopped onto my bed, tired and terrified and cranky, and pulled out my latest magazine.

_"Five tricks in bed that will drive him wild_," I read out loud. I shut the magazine shut and threw it across the room, because I had already used them all, anyway. It wouldn't be a lie if you said that I'd had a fair amount of experience in bed.

I went over to my computer, but there was nothing to look up. I took out my iPod, but there was nothing that I wanted to listen to. I picked out a couple of good books from my bookshelf, but I didn't feel like reading something that I had already read.

"How depressing," I muttered to myself, after cleaning my room and rearranging everything. I had to admit, though, that I felt a lot better after about an hour had passed. I needed to rationalize my fears so that I could overcome them, I decided.

I lumbered down to the kitchen and found Aunt Jenna paying bills. This was perfect, because she hated paying bills and would use anything as an excuse to get out of it.

"Aunt Jenna? Can I talk to you for a minute?"

She looked up, obviously relieved to see me. "Anything to get me out of doing this bills."

I sat down next to her, picking up cupcake.

"Did you bake these?" I asked her; shocked that something could have actually turned out right.

She scowled. "No. I bought them yesterday."

I snorted and bit into it, pleasantly surprised to find that it had cream in the middle.

"So, what do you want?"

The cupcake was so good that I had almost forgotten my dilemma. "Right. So, why do people have nightmares?"

Way to be blunt, Elena.

Aunt Jenna's never surprised by anything, no matter what you tell her. "Nightmares are caused by a deep physiological disturbance. In order to get them to stop, you have to find out what's bothering you, first."

How am I supposed to do _that_? "So, how do you find out what's bothering you?"

She shrugged. "You confront the source."

Oh, God. I can think of a couple things that I'd rather do than that. I couldn't make her too suspicious, so I dropped the subject.

"Okay. Thanks, Aunt Jenna. I think I'll go to the library."

Despite me being popular, I have an inner book nerd. Reading calmed me down whenever I was in a mood; and today, I was _definitely _in a mood.

"Why don't you take Jeremy with you? He should get his lazy ass out of the house for once."

I frowned. "Jeremy's home?"

She rolled her eyes. "I can't even remember the last time he actually _went _to school. The teachers kicked him out sometime last year for being caught stoned for the third time."

"Wait…so he doesn't even go to school? Isn't that illegal?"

She shrugged. "I tell the authorities that I home school him. What they don't know won't hurt them."

This is why I love my aunt so much.

"I'll go get him."

"Good luck with that."

Words of encouragement are always helpful, I reminded myself so I wouldn't snap something that I would regret later.

The stairs were seeming like a less and less happy place to be as I went back up them, taking my own sweet time.

I knocked on his door, wanting to hurry up and get this over with; his room had mold growing in it and burgers that must have been over a month old.

"Jeremy! Open the damned door! I know you're in there!"

The door abruptly opened, causing me to fall into him. He sighed; sounding annoyed as he caught me and stood me up straight, not looking particularly happy to see me. "What the fuck do you want, Elena?"

Jeremy swore _all the time_. It ran in the family, I think.

"I'm going to the library. Please come with me."

"No, I don't think so." He shut the door in my face as I stood there, not shocked in the least.

"Why didn't you tell me you're being homeschooled?" I shouted through his door.

"Because I'm not!"

I took in a deep breath and composed myself. "You do realize that that's illegal, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you're doing it anyway?"

"Yeah."

I obviously wasn't going to get anything out of him.

"Well, bye, then."

"Whatever. Let me know when dinner's ready, will you?"

I pity the girl that has to marry this pig. "Yeah, whatever."

I stalked down the stairs. I think I'll camp out on the couch to avoid going back up them again, I contemplated to myself.

"Bye, Aunt Jenna."

"Mmm." She was eating another one of those awesome cupcakes. Not that I can blame her, because they were amazing.

I shook my head and ran across the lawn, getting a little bit of energy back in me. I whistled the last stupid pop song on the radio to myself, ignoring the looks I was getting from people around me. Once bitch had the nerve to mutter, "tone deaf" loud enough that I'd be able to hear.

Even though I had regained a bit of energy, I still didn't have enough to turn around and ask her exactly what she meant by that. It was her lucky day.

I stopped into the coffee store, needing an extra boost. Our coffee store was…quaint. That was the only good word I had for it. It was hideous: tiny, shabby and old. The shutters were hanging out of their hinges and the roof had holes in it, so the store flooded every time it rained.

I waited out the short line and looked at a shorthaired girl across the counter who was glaring at me, obviously jealous. I was too tired to deal with this right now.

"One espresso, please, " I asked her politely.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" she rudely asked me. What was with all of these people being rude to me?

"Shouldn't you be getting me my coffee?"

She sneered at me unattractively as she poured my hot coffee into a cup, conveniently forgetting to tell me that the cup was piping hot.

I shoved the money into her dry and cracked hands. "You're so fucking lucky that we're not at McDonald's right now."

She didn't respond; maybe she was wiser than I had thought. As I walked out of the store and sipped my coffee, I began to feel more and more alive again. I had read in a magazine that it was important to read caffeine in the span of one hour instead of gulping it all down; if you don't, all you're getting yourself is a sugar rush and a really bad headache, followed by passing out from exhaustion.

The walk to the library was long and uneventful, besides jay walking and angry dogs barking at me.

My face hardened as I stepped through the threshold of the library, preparing myself to find out more than I ever wanted to know.

I walked up to the front desk, staring at the large polish lady typing away on her computer. "Excuse me?"

She looked up for about half as second before she returned her fingers back to her chocolate bar. What I wouldn't do for one of those right now…

"What?"

She snapped her fingers in my face and I realized that I had been staring at her candy bar. "What? Oh, sorry."

"Don't apologize, girl. Just tell me what you want."

Deep breathes. "Where can I find information on people whose names start with 'S'?"

Fortunately, she didn't care enough to be suspicious of me. "The very back of the library, where that long line of tables is lined up."

"Thanks." Not.

I kept my head down as people stared at me, Elena Gilbert, making her way to the back of the library where geeks came after school to do their homework. It didn't add up; that much I knew. The people would have questions that I wouldn't know how to answer.

There was a huge line of brown tables, just as the lady had said, lined up against the back wall of the library. Finding Stefan fairly quickly, I pulled out his file and sat down at a table, ready to confront my fears.

All of the sudden, just as I was starting to open the folder, someone was sitting in the chair besides me.

"Hello, Elena. I hope I didn't frighten you."

My shriek caused several heads to turn towards us, and I glared at Stefan Salvatore as he lounged in the chair across from me, perfectly at ease.

"You scared me!" What is _wrong _with you, Elena? Didn't he just say he hoped he hadn't done that?

"I apologize."

I sighed, my tense shoulders starting to relax. "Yeah, that's okay. What're you doing here?"

"What are _you _doing here?"

I wasn't an idiot. I knew a person that didn't want to answer a question when I saw one. Best to play along.

"Touché."

We sat in silence, neither one of us answering the question that was still lingering in the air; it was awkward. This time, I had no flashbacks of the nightmares I'd been having; I just didn't like the way he intimidated me.

It was my job to intimidate people.

"So…what's in that folder?"

Oh, no. He couldn't know… "Oh, it's nothing." Insert nervous, cheesy and totally fake sounding laugh here. I am _so _screwed.

"Really? Because it looks like something to me."

"Well, it isn't." I realized I sounded like a complete bitch because I had snapped that at him…I wasn't fun to be around when I got defensive.

"Okay. I didn't mean to be nosy."

We sat in silence again, my fingers tapping against the table and Stefan crossing his legs and staring out the window.

"You're really beautiful, you know."

God, no. "Yeah, I know."

He smirked and I was _this _close to smacking him.

"Look, I've got to go, Stefan."

He stood up and pulled out my chair for me as I got up from my chair, just like a gentleman. "Thanks."

"Certainly. It was very nice to see you, Elena."

"Yeah. Maybe I'll see you around sometime."

"I'll look forward to that."

I wonder if he noticed me shoving the folder in my pocket as I walked away briskly, determined to get away from him.

"Wow, is it "ditching day" or something?"

DAMN IT. "Caroline! What are you doing here?"

She shrugged, not even bothering to smile. "Did I not just say I was ditching school? I thought you were sick."

Want to play the bitch game? "Well, I'm obviously not. I ran into Stefan, though. How're things going with you and…are you even still with Mike?" I pretended to grimace. "I've heard some rumors…"

Her eyes widened for about half a second. "What kind of rumors?"

"You know…him…_hanging out _with other girls. And we all know what "hanging out" means, right?"

She scowled. "Well, you would, wouldn't you?"

"I'm pretty sure you would, too. I hope to see you around, Caroline."

She scoffed. "No, you don't."

"I know."

I stalked past her as she grumbled, walking in her high heels over to the romance novels that bordered on porn. Minors should _not _be allowed to check that out; technically, Caroline and I weren't minors, anyway.

Am I the only person that hates moot points?

As I walked out of the library, I saw the crow again. This time, I strangely felt at peace with it instead of the usual intense hatred I felt towards the bird.

"Hi, Crow," I stupidly said to it, approaching it less cautiously than I should have.

It barked back at me, sounding angry; it flapped its wings like it was threatening to fly away.

"Don't be like that," I muttered as I walked past it, wondering what I should do next. Eventually, I decided to just go home and get some more sleep.

After all: sleep was the most common thing you could find a teenager doing.

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When I woke up I felt refreshed.

It was a nice feeling, as I walked down to the dinner table to help eat the left over pizza. The stairs that had seemed almost as bad as my nightmares this morning now weren't nearly as hideous. There had been no nightmares. Instead, I saw a man's back, and he was walking away from me. He had black hair, stood at a fairly tall height, and wore all black. I was calling out to him not to leave me, to stay with me.

I couldn't understand myself clearly enough to make out the name I was saying, but it started with a D.

"Up so early, Elena?" Aunt Jenna asked me after handing me two pieces of plain cheese.

I shoved the food in my mouth, not caring about manners. "Sorry, Aunt Jenna. I was tired."

She shrugged. "What do I care? Now I have two kids that stay home all the time."

My mouth dropped open, food spilling out of it. "What?"

She smiled cheerfully. "Well, I called the school and informed them that I decided to home school you instead. Ms. Summers didn't give a fuck—surprise, surprise."

"Why the hell would you do that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be such a drama queen, Elena. I took you out of school because I saw how miserable you were there. That kid—Stefan—was scaring the crap out of you and I don't want you anywhere near him."

I was all but hyperventilating from all the thoughts that were running through my head: _What about Bonnie? What about defeating Caroline at everything? What about Stefan?_

I had to admit, as that last thought came to my brain, I was a bit relieved that I wouldn't have to see him again.

"Aunt Jenna, that is the stupidest and nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."

She punched my shoulder. "Don't mention it, kid. Now, you'd better go and call Bonnie and explain to her why you've dropped off the face of the earth all the sudden."

Damn it. This could be difficult.

I took another piece of pizza on the go with me as I walked to the kitchen, where the phone was, and dialed her number.

"Hello?" She must've been expecting me. Her and her stupid "physic visions".

"Bonnie!"

She laughed. "Damn. What the hell are you eating?"

She must have been in a really good mood; she only swore when she was happy.

"A piece of pizza. Why? Do I sound like I'm gurgling?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Where were you at school today?"

Here it goes. "Okay. I have a bit of a crazy story for you…"

"When don't you?"

I suppose that was a valid point. "No, this is…insane. You ready?"

"Yeah. I'm even sitting down."

Deep breathes. "Okay…Aunt Jenna called the school—without my permission, might I add—and told them that she's going to home school me. Except, she's not actually going to teach me anything. She saw how much Stefan was bothering me."

The other end was silent for a long time. "You're…leaving?"

"No, Bonnie! I'll still see you every day! Just not during school hours."

Just as I had feared, her tone turned venomous. "Well, Elena, I hope you have fun sitting around doing _nothing _all day. And good luck finding a new best friend, bitch. I'm done."

She hung up the phone and I stood there in shock. What the hell? How could someone make up their mind over something like that so fast?

I couldn't do anything; I couldn't react to that, at least. I found myself walking back into the living room in a zombie-like state.

"Elena? What's wrong?"

My voice was quiet and broken sounding as I spoke. "Bonnie hates me. She doesn't want to be my friend anymore."

Jeremy obviously didn't care while Aunt Jenna got a furious look on her face. She started shouting about how ungrateful Bonnie was to have a friend like me and threw her pizza at the wall, the sauce oozing down like blood from a dead person's corpse.

Normally, I would've found her antics amusing. Not tonight.

I walked up the stairs and into my bedroom, barely realizing what I was doing as I shut the door and locked it. All of the sudden, I was cuddled up in a ball in the middle of my bed, desperately clinging onto the sheets on my bed for support, and bawling my eyes out until there were no more tears for me to cry.

My best friend…my only _real_ friend…was gone.

I sat up most of the night feeling depressed. Eventually, it kicked in that I would never have to go to school again and unwillingly felt myself smile. Who needed Bonnie, anyway? I had Aunt Jenna.

I went to sleep feeling tired and confused, torn on whether to feel heartbroken or not. I guess I must've picked not, because when I woke up the next morning, I had never felt better in my life. Well, I had a headache from crying for hours, but what can you do? Coffee can fix that.

No more school, no more Stefan, no more stress. Life was good.

"Good morning, Aunt Jenna," I said cheerfully as I ran down the stairs for some coffee.

"Um, hi." She looked confused.

"Why do you look confused?" 

"Well…your best friend dumped you last night and you were crying your eyes out almost all night long. And now you're cheerful and happy. What gives?"

I shrugged. "I got over her."

"You…got over her."

"Yes," I said patiently, bumping her out of the way so I could reach the coffee.

"Something's up."

I rolled my eyes. "Nothing is up. I'm just excited that I'll never have to go to school again."

"What about college?"

Damn you, Aunt Jenna. "Well, maybe I'll go then. I have better things to do, you know."

Cup of coffee in hand, I walked past her and up into the living room.

"Ouch!" I heard Aunt Jenna yell. I walked back into the room to find her cradling a bloody hand, with a knife on the floor.

"What did you _do_?" There was blood all over the floor and on the counter, and not to mention gushing from her cut; it was no plain old paper cut.

"I don't know! One second I was cutting up an apple and then…"

I looked over at the apple and saw that it was a dark red…on the inside.

"Ewe. Now, come on, get your hand under some water."

All of the sudden, I heard an earth shattering thud, followed by two men yelling at each other. They were speaking so quickly that I couldn't even understand what they were saying.

"What the hell?" I walked towards the front door and opened it somewhat timidly. The only thing missing out of place was a bush in front of the kitchen; there were no men in our front lawn.

"Maybe I heard them from another house," I muttered to myself. A quick glance around the neighborhood showed no signs of anyone fighting, so I shut the door, feeling a little bit uneasy.

"What _happened_?" Jeremy asked from where he was sitting on the couch.

"I don't know."

I helped Aunt Jenna clean up her cut and watched old re-runs of _Friends _with Jeremy for the rest of the day. I never heard from Bonnie, which was fine with me; I didn't need her anymore.

When the last episode ended, I sighed. "What do we do, now?" 

He twiddled his thumbs nervously. "Uh, I'm going back up to my room. Leave me alone unless there's food or the house is on fire."

I glared at him, annoyed and disturbed. "Is that code for I'm going to go get stoned and I don't want you to find out?"

"Fuck you, Elena!"

I rolled my eyes as he sprinted up the stairs. Aunt Jenna came in the room, looking sad. "I wonder when his last fix was. Three hours ago?"

I laughed humorlessly. "Probably less. I need to get out of the house."

She tried to look stern for about ten seconds. "If anyone asks, you're homeschooled and you're running an errand for me."

"Of course I am."

I walked out the door, having no clue as to what I was supposed to do. Library? No, I went there yesterday and saw Stefan. Definitely not. I was still kind of hopped up on coffee, so Starbuck's was out of the question—and it was, like, thirty miles away, anyway.

Suddenly, I got the idea to go to the graveyard where my parents were buried. I don't know where it came from, but it felt like a really good idea. In some ways, I was right; in some ways, I was wrong.

Whistling a song to myself, I reached the cemetery in almost no time at all.

"Wow. I guess I can walk faster than I thought." I'm not even sure why I said that out loud; I think deep, deep down, I already knew that something was up.

I sat against my parent's big headstone, pulling out my cell phone: no new messages.

"Bitch," I muttered under my breath. She didn't know what she was missing out on.

All of the sudden, I felt a spark and yelped as my cell phone went dead. I punched at all the buttons, bewildered, but nothing happened.

"Dead battery?" No, I had charged it this morning, and it was starting to creep me out that I kept on talking to myself. I looked around, just in case, making sure that there was no one there.

"Weird." Shut up, Elena!

A thick fog began to form out of nowhere, pooling around my knees. It was cold, like ice. I looked up to see that the sun was still shining bright in the sky, taunting me as the mass of fog kept on growing. I stood up and glared at the crow as it sat on the headstone across from me.

"Surprise, surprise; you're here! Maybe we should just go out on a date and make it official."

"I would like that very much." I screeched as the crow disappeared and a voice spoke behind me, sending cold chills up my neck. I turned around and saw a flash of black hair and fair skin, and then…nothing.

Trembling, I picked up my dead cell phone and ran as fast as my weak legs would carry me, anxious to get away from the psycho that was obviously after me.

The wall—well, run, actually—home at never seemed longer than it did as I broke out into a cold sweat, shivering and feeling like the man was still behind me and blowing cool air on the back. I felt relief when I landed and collapsed on the doorstep, too tired to move any further.

I closed my eyes and tried to forget what had just happened, but it was impossible; it was forever imprinted into my brain.

Aunt Jenna eventually came out and saw me all curled up in front of the door, shaking like it was twenty degrees outside, despite the fact that it was summer.

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing." If I told her what had been going on lately, she would think that I'm insane.

"It doesn't _look _like nothing."

"Well, it is," I snapped, finding strength to stand up and walk inside, only to collapse again on the couch.

"Maybe you've got heatstroke."

"I said I'm fine, Aunt Jenna!" I didn't mean to yell, but I was on the verge of hysteria and she was standing there, talking about me having heat stroke. "Would you please just leave me alone?" 

She shrugged, looking miffed. "Fine."

I crawled back up the stairs sometime later that night, ignoring her when she told me dinner was ready. I climbed into bed and sat there, knowing that there was no chance of me falling asleep. When I closed my eyes, the only thing I could picture was the quick glance I'd gotten at that man.

Insomnia took over for the next three nights. I would fall asleep for about five minutes before waking up screaming and crying, and Aunt Jenna would have to drag me to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face to convince me that I wasn't dreaming anymore.

These late night habits only reminded me of one thing: Stefan. I remembered Aunt Jenna's words took over in my brain: _You need to confront your fears to get over them._

Could I really face Stefan? Did I have the courage? What if he really was a psycho? Even with all of these possibilities, I knew that I had already decided what was going to happen.

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Which is exactly why I found myself standing outside the oldest house in Mystic Falls, Virginia: the boarding house. Otherwise known as Stefan Salvatore's house.

How did I know this, you might ask? First, there's one thing you need to know about Mystic Falls: there are no secrets. Try to keep one and you'll only fail epically. And I found out, by the way, because that backstabbing bitch some of you call 'Bonnie' told me.

_Just ring the fucking doorbell, Elena. _With a deep breath, I complied and, as soon as I did, panic started to set in; I squealed and started running down the lawn before the door swung open and Stefan stepped out.

"Elena?" Why did his voice sound friendly and not creepy? Is that what serial killers' voices really sound like?

I slowly turned around as he started walking towards me, a confused and timid smile on his face. "Um…hi, Stefan." Oh, my God. I can't believe I was actually _blushing_.

"It's nice to see you. Can I help you with something?"

"No… yes. May I come in?"

He stepped back and held the door open for me. "Of course."

"Thanks," I muttered as I walked passed him and into the hallway. In front of me was the most beautiful house I had ever seen: it was magnificent, grand, and…well, you get the picture. It was an awesome crib.

"Nice place."

He chuckled. "Thank you. My family has lived in it for centuries."

"Do you live alone?" I couldn't imagine a seventeen-year-old boy living all by himself in this huge of a place. Then again, he _was _Stefan Salvatore.

He seemed to struggle for a minute. "Not exactly. Please, sit down."

I cautiously sat down on the couch, trying to surreptitiously check it for booby traps without looking suspicious. He looked at me strangely before sitting down in his chair across from me.

"I didn't see you at school today." Oddly enough, I didn't really feel uncomfortable at all around him…just awkward.

"Yeah, I'm being homeschooled now."

He smiled, even though it looked a little pained. "That's cool. Is it fun?"

Despite myself, I could feel my lips turning up into a smile. "Can you keep a secret?"

He laughed under his breath for a minute before composing his face. "Yes. I swear not to tell anyone."

For some reason, I believed him. "Okay, so I live with my Aunt Jenna and brother Jeremy. Aunt Jenna is the coolest parent on earth and noticed that I was getting really stressed out about…stuff. Anyway, she took me out of school, but she's not actually teaching me anything."

He seemed to debate with himself for a minute before speaking again. "What a coincidence; it just so happens that I dropped out of school today, too."

"No."

He grinned. "Yes. School isn't really my thing."

"Join the club."

His face looked determined. "So, what is it that I can help you with?"

As strange as it was, I felt kind of comfortable with Stefan. Not in a romantic way…ewe, that's gross to even think about; more in the way that he was like my older brother and would protect me from any harm.

"It was nothing." 

He shrugged. "Okay. Would you like to hang around?"

I noticed something strange about him, then: he was staring at my throat.

"Is there a reason you're staring at my throat?"

His eyes were wild and animalistic for about half a second before looking sad and ancient, like they usually did. "No. Sorry."

"That's okay. Look; I should probably get going…."

"Right. Wouldn't want to interfere with your busy schedule." Is it just me, or did he sound kind of bitter when he said that?

"Right… well, maybe I'll see you around."

He smiled. "I hope so. Goodbye, Elena."

I waved as I walked down the lawn and back home; still feeling like something was off. Now that I knew Stefan was safe, it made me feel like there was a whole new mystery to unravel.

When it came time for dinner, we all sat around the table and talked about our day.

"Jeremy? Did you do anything productive?" Aunt Jenna asked.

He shrugged. "No. Not really."

She rolled her eyes. "And Elena?"

I shrugged, just as Jeremy had. "I had several panic attacks, a weird conversation with a guy that I used to be afraid of—I'm not anymore—and went to see Mom and Dad."

Of course she didn't look phased…she was _Aunt Jenna_, after all. "Cool."

"And you?"

She smiled, getting a little twinkle in her eyes. "I have a date."

My jaw dropped. "No. With who?"

She was all but hopping up and down in her chair while Jeremy sighed dramatically and exited the room, taking his food with him. "Well, I don't actually know his name yet. I found him on a dating site."

"Oh, God. Not again! Remember what happened last time?" The last time she had gone on a dating sight, she ended up with a gay foreign guy that couldn't speak English.

"Yeah, yeah. It's all in the past. And who knows; maybe he's the one!"

"Sure, sure." I finished my food quickly and exited the table, feeling uncharacteristically grumpy about the topic of dating.

"What about you?"

I snorted. "Hell, no. I'm not going on one of those sights. Aren't you the one that's supposed to tell me not to go on sites like that?"

"Eh. We're a dysfunctional family; why bother trying to fix things?"

"That's the spirit."

Once I was in my pajamas and ready to go to bed, I cautiously closed my eyes and saw nothing but black.

Once the nightmares started, though, I saw _many _different things.

_There was a man wearing all black and a girl standing next to him. She was soaked with blood and he had his face to her neck, looking like he was whispering something in her ear. The blood was trickling everywhere and she was whimpering, barely conscious from the blood loss._

The nightmare went on like that for about ten minutes; it was so simple, and yet so disturbing.

I knew what I had to do when I woke up with tears streaming down my face. I shoved my feet into my tennis shoes, clambered down the stairs and stalked out the door, walking like I was in a trance. I was focused, on a mission.

I was going to find out why this was happening.

When I reached the cemetery, I sat down against the headstone and tried to ignore the mind-numbing terror that was beginning to form. All too soon, the fog was all around me, all but suffocating me as I struggled to stand up. This time, though, there was no crow.

"Who are you?" I shouted. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Everything stopped for a second, and then I went still went I sensed something behind me.

"My name is Damon Salvatore."

I did my best not to scream as a slowly turned around, expecting to see some ugly old man with a mangled corpse in his hand. Oh, was I wrong.

When I turned around fully and opened my eyes, I saw the most gorgeous boy in the world standing right in front of me, looking completely at ease. Damon Salvatore.

**AN: Who else would like to have Aunt Jenna for a legal guardian? Now that we've met our favorite sexy vampire, we can get this show on the road! New update Monday. Leave me a review if you want Damon to scare the hell out of you (come on: you know you want him to). **

**Love, Evie**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN 1: To anyone that reads one of my other stories, **_**Another Person Inside:**_** I'm only able to post this chapter because it was almost finished, whereas I write a new chapter every day for API. I'm at my great grandmother's funeral (she lived a **_**really **_**long time), which is out of the state I live in, so I really appreciate that you guys are being patient. Hopefully I'll be back by the 27****th****, but I'm not exactly sure. **

**AN 2: Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to review. Also, thank you to **_**darkangel590**_** for pointing out the fact that Bonnie has brown eyes and Elena's are dark blue with gold flecks in them. Enjoy!**

** Chapter Three**

Wait…Salvatore?

As in, Stefan Salvatore?

"Wow. That's fucked up." I hadn't realized that I'd said this under my breath until I saw him raise on of his perfect eyebrows.

"I beg your pardon?"

The second I laid my eyes on him, the fear just…disappeared. Instead, I felt anger and annoyance take its place. Why was he even bothering me with all of this? I had lost my best friend, a considerable amount of sleep, and my entire senior year because of this jerk!

"So you're the one that's been tormenting me for the past week?" He shrugged modestly, as if he were taking a compliment.

"No need to thank me."

Oh, joy; he's arrogant. "Oh, don't worry; I'm not going to. But I do have _quite _a few questions, if you don't mind."

He gestured with his hand that I should continue. He was surprisingly polite for an insane serial killer…at least; I _thought_ he was an insane serial killer.

Best to start with the easy questions. "Are you related to Stefan Salvatore?"

He made a disgusted noise. "Unfortunately. The _only _way that _thing _and I are related by is blood."

Wow. "Sibling rivalry, much?"

He shrugged. "Not really. Mother always liked me better. He was just jealous." He flashed a quick smile that made my knees to weak. I cursed when I could feel the all-too familiar signs of arousal forming…_now isn't the time, Elena!_

Damn it; I was probably going to have to jack off later, like a thirteen year old girl that couldn't get laid…how depressing.

"So, you're obviously cocky."

"Correction: _very _cocky." We both know that I didn't miss his subtle gesture aimed at his crotch.

"Okay. I'm going to pretend that I didn't just hear that."

"Why?"

"Why have you been making my life a living hell?"

He smirked. "You like it that much, huh?"

"Just answer the damned question!" I all but screeched, already growing tired of his childish antics. Of course, I would be lying if I said I was any better when it came to being mature.

"Okay, okay. I'm doing this to destroy Stefan."

"Wh—what?" I spluttered.

He sighed impatiently. "You heard me. Stefan, you see, has feelings towards you; obviously, with much reason, you do not return them. But if I can win you over, it will break his cold little heart into a million pieces."

I may not have been the nicest person on the earth, but this was just cruel. "That's horrible!"

I knew that Jeremy and I had our ups and downs, but this was a real eye-opener to me at just how vicious siblings can be to each other.

He rolled his eyes. "Don't flatter me."

"UGH! Could you try to be civil for, like, ten seconds?"

He smiled. "I'm being perfectly civil, honey. You're the one that's throwing a tantrum."

My face was probably bright red from fury. "Well, excuse me if I don't appreciate you destroying my entire life!"

"You're forgiven. And stop being so overdramatic: how's a couple nights staying up at night going to impact your entire life?"

I felt a sudden urge to hit him with something really, _really _hard. "I wasn't talking about the fucking sleep! I was talking about the fact that you scared me so badly with those nightmares that I can't even go to school and face your brother!" 

He leaned in closer to whisper in my ear. "Oh, Stefan? Yeah, I would stay away from him if I were you. He's a _total _creep."

I had to agree with him on that. "I lost my best friend because of what you did, too!"

He merely shrugged. "Well, she obviously wasn't your best friend if she left you _that _easily. I'm just getting started…"

I whimpered out of fear (okay, and lust) when I felt his cold breath on my neck and took a large step backward, trying to maintain control for as long as possible.

He simply stared at me with his black eyes. They were beautiful, in the strangest sort of way: like little jewels picked out of the dark midnight sky. They had a happy little glint to them that I had never seen in anyone else's eyes before—they were the eyes of a predator.

"You aren't human, are you?" My brain and my mouth were not related in any way at this point.

He looked impressed. "Wow. Maybe you're not as stupid as I thought."

I stood in front of him, literally trembling in fury and attempting to reason with myself that no good would come from trying to hurt him physically.

Finally, I found my voice again. "Look: I'm sorry about whatever's going on between you and Stefan right now. But I'm asking you to please leave me out of it. Sabotaging my life isn't going to change anything."

"Oh, but it is, Elena."

"Please, just leave me alone."

"I can't do that." His eyes looked amused; this was all a big joke to him.

"Yes, you can!" I was yelling at this point. Why was I getting so worked up about this? I didn't even know him, but I was already interested in what was happening between him and his brother.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Elena." All of the sudden, he was gone.

Like, he vanished. Literally.

"Where?" I shouted, but there was no one there to answer me.

When I got home that night, I went to sleep and dreamt of Damon Salvatore.

**ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ**

The next morning, I refused to get out of bed; I was going to prove Damon wrong. He wasn't going to see me today. He would find someone else to torture with sick and sadistic mind games and I would forget he ever existed.

Okay, who are we kidding? I would _never _forget someone _that _sexy. I can hide out and try to pretend that he didn't exist, though.

"Elena?" I heard Aunt Jenna call from the other side of the door.

"Yes?" I called back calmly.

"Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine."

"Okay…" She stood there for another minute and walked away, presumably to yell at Jeremy about something or another.

I sat there stubbornly for another ten minutes until I realized that food would be an essential part of my plan to avoid Damon at all costs and got up, figuring walking around the house wouldn't be too big of a deal. Hopefully he didn't know where I lived and wouldn't try to bother me here.

Oh, how very wrong I was.

The kitchen wasn't close enough for my growling stomach as I raced for it, tripping over my feet and hitting by head on the wood floor.

"Damn it!" Where was Aunt Jenna when you actually _needed _her?

I found an ice pack from the freezer, after I had managed to pull myself up from the ground, and sat at the counter whilst injuring my wounds. I tried not to get Nutri-Grain Bar crumbs on my flannel pajamas as I calmly ate my breakfast and drank my coffee, the sharp and searing pain in my head slowly subsiding.

Aunt Jenna appeared right when I _didn't _need her, of course. She walked towards the door right as it rang and heard two low voices speaking in a friendly tone. No. No. _NO!_

"Elena! You have visitors!"

Oh, _hell _no.

"Well, I don't want to see anyone." Was it rude? Yes. Was it a smart thing to do? Well…probably not.

She quickly walked into the kitchen and glared at me, getting even closer until we were eye to eye. "Don't be rude," she hissed. "They are _hot_."

"What're their names?"

"Damon and Stefan Salvatore. Apparently they're brothers."

I scowled at my remaining crumbs of my cereal bar. "Fine. If they're so desperate to see me then they can come to me. And you need to leave the house."

She nodded eagerly, like a dog about to get a biscuit, and spoke to them in low, seductive tones as she led them to me. Damon was even more beautiful than the night before because I could see all of his masculine, angular features in the bright light. It may sound cheesy; but it seriously seemed like he lit up the whole room.

Stefan, on the other hand…well, not so much.

"Hi, Elena." I nodded at Stefan because _he _hadn't done anything wrong.

Damon flashed me that smile again and I shuddered uncontrollably. "Hello, Elena."

"What the fuck do you want?" I tried to make myself sound especially hostile, but that damned Damon just looked amused.

"On that note… bye." Aunt Jenna left the house without any further explanation and I made a gross noise as I gulped about half a glass of coffee down.

"So what do you two want?"

"Guess." Damon seemed to have some sort of addiction to mind games; maybe I should get him a Sudoku book.

"Well, I don't know. You like toying with people's emotions, so maybe you're here to watch _Gilmore Girls _with me. It's just _full _of drama.

"As tempting as that sounds…no."

Stefan stepped in. "I'm sorry for barging in."

I raised my eyebrow. "Then why'd you do it?"

He looked hurt for a moment. "I'm not here to be your enemy. I am team Switzerland."

Oh, my God. Can someone _be _more boring than this?

"Stefan, that was a strange thing to say. Damon: why are you here?"

"I told you that we'd be here today."

This isn't going anywhere. "I know that. I'm wondering _why _I'm seeing you here today."

He rolled his eyes. "Ask Stefan."

"Stefan?"

He looked down timidly. "Well, Damon did something very stupid last night. I would like to apologize on behalf of him, first. And, I'm here to ask you what you know about us."

"What I…know about you?" What the hell is that supposed to mean?

"Yes."

I stared at him and waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't.

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"I was hoping you would."

This conversation just keeps getting weirder and weirder. "Okay… I just met both of you, so I know nothing about you."

Damon rolled his eyes, obviously not the most patient person in the room. "Last night, you told me I wasn't human."

Oh, _that_. "Well, you were kind of being a freak. I didn't mean it _literally_." Well, actually, I did; but they didn't need to know that.

Stefan looked relieved while Damon obviously didn't buy my lie. "So you don't have any delusions about us being superhuman?"

Way to flatter me, Stephanie. "I don't have any delusions, period, you ass!"

He looked deeply offended and hurt. "There's no need to use profanity."

"Well, I can see we're not going to get along very well."

He looked down and Damon sat next to me, placing his hand on my knee. I considered slapping it but knew it would be useless, so I let my arms hang limply at my sides. Whenever I got nervous, my fingers started twitching and I felt the urge to run my fingers through my hair or drum them on the countertop, so this was very irritating to me.

"Elena, there's no need to lie."

He's good. "I'm not lying. Why would I?" Besides the fact that you'll probably tie me to some tree and leave me there for three days if I let one word slip about his…mutant genetics.

He obviously saw right through my little charade. I didn't worry about Stefan, though; he wasn't like his brother. I'm not saying that he was stupid, because he wasn't. He just wasn't disturbingly sharp in ways no one should be sharp in.

He pretended to contemplate. "Maybe because you're afraid of what we'll do to you if you tell us the truth?"

Well, _that_ was uncomfortable to hear. "What would you do to me _if _I was lying, _hypothetically_, seeing as I'm not?"

He stood up and started to circle around me like he was a wolf and I was the prey, leaning in every once in a while. "Well, there are lots of things that I could do… But none of them would serve a greater purpose in my diabolical plan."

"And what part of your diabolical plan? Besides, you know, the part where you seduce me in an attempt to take a stab at Stefan's heart."

He gave me the most annoyed expression that I had ever seen before turning his back to me. Ha—I'd ruined his plan! Maybe he'd leave me alone, now…

"Stefan, don't believe a word she says. She wants me and she'll hurt you in the process to get to me."

Of _course _not. Damon didn't just "leave people alone" because of small bump in the road. He couldn't be deterred once he was focused on something.

He rolled his eyes. "Damon, I'm not _that _stupid. She obviously wants _me_." How'd he manage to do that while still sounding like he had no self-confidence whatsoever? That's somewhat impressive.

I felt that it was time to intervene. "Actually, I really don't like either one of you. In fact; I'd like you to go now, if you would."

The only redeeming quality Stefan had to me was his chivalry. "Of course."

He nodded and waved to me before walking out of the room, presumably expecting his evil brother to follow behind him. In about half an hour in total, it would appear that I already knew Damon better than him.

"Please leave," I repeated, getting up and turning on the sink to wash the plate that I had used to catch my crumbs from breakfast.

"But I don't want to leave!" I rolled his eyes at his whiny voice as he took the plate from me and washed it in under ten seconds, making it squeaky clean, and putting it away in the cupboard before I could even blink to catch up with his rapid and supernatural movements.

I stared at him, wide eyed. "How the _hell _did you do that?" There was no way even the fastest track runner in the world could've moved that quickly.

He smiled, amused. "Fast reflexes."

I glared at him and he shrugged. "If you want the real answer, I could always sit down and stay for a while…"

"NO!" I didn't really want to know the answer, anyway.

He winked as he tugged at his jacket, turning around to leave. "Your loss. I'll see you tonight."

"Ugh! Leave me alone!"

"Not likely," I heard him respond as he shut the door to the front of the house behind him.

**ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYP**

Why did I have to be Elena Gilbert?

Why couldn't I just be a normal girl, like Caroline or Bonnie, and not have to deal with all of this drama and stalking and mayhem? It wasn't that I was ungrateful for my life…I just wished I had a different one, and you would too, if you were in my shoes. **(AN: No, we wouldn't!)**

I was sitting at the table and chewing down the lump of old noodles with chunky tomatoes on top of it that Aunt Jenna had the nerve to call "spaghetti", staring at Jeremy. None of us spoke, resulting in an awkward silence.

Finally, Aunt Jenna was brave enough to speak. "So, Elena. How did you meet your new friends?"

I grumbled as I stabbed at my food. "They're not my friends. And it's kind of a long story."

"Well, it's not like anyone's going to interrupt you."

I shrugged. "I met Stefan at school and I met Damon in a graveyard around three in the morning."

It probably should've made me nervous that she didn't look at all concerned or surprised. "Yeah, I heard you opening and closing the front door, all sneaky-like, earlier."

My jaw dropped. "And you didn't try to stop me?"

She shook her head. "I figured you'd learn your lesson. Was I correct?"

No. "Yes, Aunt Jenna."

She beamed. "I usually am."

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Your shirt's looking slutty." She laughed and walked away from the table with a full plate of food as I looked down and saw that she was correct: my lacy bra was hanging out of my shirt, making me look like some kind of model gone wild.

Oh, no…what did the Salvatore brothers see? And Damon said that he would be over here later tonight…

"Aunt Jenna? I'm going out."

"Where?" Like she cared.

I came up with the first thing I could think of. "Um, the ice cream store."

She straightened up her back. Aunt Jenna had a strange little obsession with ice cream. "I think I might join you. In fact, why don't we all go?"

The more I thought about it, the better that was. I didn't know what Damon would do to them if I wasn't here and they were, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for something like that.

I smiled at the turn of events; Damon wasn't going to have anyone to visit tonight. I stalked over to the table and yanked Jeremy's earphones out of his head, causing him to yelp loudly.

"What the hell?"

"We're going for ice cream."

He stared at me stubbornly. "Well, have fun."

I looked at him, confused. Who wouldn't want ice cream? "You're coming, too."

"Nope."

"Yes."

"No."

_"Yes."_

I'll spare you the details: it went on for about a minute in a half like that before Aunt Jenna yanked him up out of his chair and dragged him to the door. He blushed and whispered something in her ear, causing her to break down into hysterics.

"What?" I didn't like being out of the loop. And yes, I know that sounds hypocritical after me begging Damon to leave me out of his and Stefan's business.

"Jeremy doesn't want to get fat."

I shook my head at him in disappointment. "Jeremy, you're such an idiot. Girls don't _like _guys that are skinnier than a stick; maybe if you actually filled out a little bit, you wouldn't be bringing home ugly-assed girls anymore."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm doing it for someone in particular, okay?"

"Okay…. who?"

He got all defensive. "None of your business!"

"Fine! Chill the fuck out, already!"

All three of us argued the whole walk to the ice cream store, making us quite the spectacle for innocent bystanders. When we got there, I ordered a coffee in a cone and sat down in one of the chairs and sighed in impatience.

"Hello, Elena."

I looked up and screamed in anger, damning Damon straight to hell. I was still surprised to find that he wasn't scaring me; no, now he was just irritating me.

"What phase of your plan is this?" I hissed. "The part where you kidnap me or the part where you seduce me back to your layer and fuck my brains out?"

He smiled sarcastically. "Well, as tempting as the latter one sounds,"—insert devious and sexy smile here—"This stage of the plan is simply to get to know you better. After all, you're going to be my princess of darkness one of these days; don't you think we should get to know everything about each other?"

I wrinkled my nose. "You know what? I really don't want to know all about you. You disgust me. And I don't want to be your princess of darkness, either."

Ah, what a lie that was.

Again, he saw right through it. "Well, if I disgust you so much, then I'm sure you don't want to kiss me…"

He leaned in and temporarily paralyzed me with his tantalizing scent: sweet, with just a hint of spicy. Basically the opposite of him. I struggled to keep breathing as he leaned closer and closer, so close to my mouth…

"Elena!" I whipped my head around and heard Damon's grunt of displeasure as my hair made contact with his eye. I ran for my ice cream and thanked her before sitting back down at a different table with her and praying that my little stalker friend would leave me alone. Jeremy sat beside me and stared at his ice cream (low fat and sugar free lemon), looking disgusted.

I growled savagely when Damon's chair scraped roughly across the cement next to me, taunting me in so many ways that I couldn't count them all.

"I swear to God; if you sit down…"

"Elena!" Aunt Jenna interrupted right when I was starting to get on a roll. "Don't be so rude!"

"Thank you, Ms. Gilbert." He lazily lounged next to me and placed his hand on my thigh and I slapped it unthinkingly, recoiling at how hard it was.

"Ouch! What the fuck?"

He feigned innocence. "What is it?"

"What is it? _What is it?_ Look at my hand, you bastard—it's turning blue!"

He rolled his eyes and gingerly took my hand in his, casually observing it. "I don't see anything."

I closed my eyes as I literally started to see everything with a fiery red background, causing my head to spin.

"Aunt Jenna, I'm not feeling so good."

Damon was fairly decent at pretending to be concerned. "Oh, no! May I please take you home?" Well, his face looked concerned; his voice sounded like he was mundanely reading a boring script.

Aunt Jenna all but flushed with joy. "What a kind friend you have. I'll see you later, kids."

I hope Aunt Jenna gets another gay foreign guy for her stupid online dating and making me walk home with _him. _I shot her the death glare and she smiled back cheerily, pointing at my shirt. I looked down to see that my chest was practically hanging out of my shirt and pulled it up, not really making much of a difference. Damon smiled and gave me thumbs up but said nothing else, making my headache even worse.

"I can walk myself," I hissed venomously at him as we walked away from them, still clutching my head in an effort to make it stop pounding from all of the anger rushing through it.

What was _wrong _with me?

"But, Elena? Whatever would I do if you were to drop dead in the middle of rush hour traffic?"

I clenched my eyes shut at his evil smile…still not afraid. Maybe there really _was _something wrong with me, like a genetic screw up that caused me to only be afraid of things at certain and inappropriate times. "Is that a concern or a threat?"

He shrugged. "Let's leave that up to you."

There was nothing that I had to say to that; I don't think I would have said anything even if I did have something to say, anyway. Maybe he really _would _throw me out in the middle of traffic.

But would that serve a greater purpose in his diabolical plan?

We walked in silence for the most part until we finally reached my destination.

"Thanks for walking me home, I guess."

"Sure. We should do this again sometime." I rolled my eyes at his cliché after-date response and turned to go inside before he whipped my arm around and pulled me into his strong embrace.

I didn't even have a chance to protest before his lips crashed down on mine and kissed me passionately, causing me to moan loudly into his mouth before I could come to my fucking senses.

"Damn it, Damon!" I yelled at him as he allowed me to pull back, not even looking effected. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You seemed to like it well enough."

My initial reaction would've been to slap him, but I didn't want to be an idiot, not think clearly and end up with a broken hand because I lost my temper. **(Bella of **_**Twilight**_**, anyone?)**

So, instead I took the melted mass that was once my ice cream and dumped it all over his black hair, watching in satisfaction as it dripped down his devilishly immaculate face and into his shirt.

"Thanks for walking me home, Damon," I repeated as I slammed the door shut in his face and walked up to my bedroom. Now the only thing I had to do was find a way to get rid of him once and for all.

**AN: Wow; Damon is a little bitch, isn't he? But he's OUR bitch.**

**Reviews motivate me to write more…just saying. ;) New chapter next Monday. :)**

**Love,**

**Evangeline**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to review. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries, David Bowie or Wal-Mart. Unfortunately. **

**Chapter Four**

I stayed up all night trying to figure out how Damon could do the things he did. Moving at impossibly fast speeds? Always knowing where I was? Skin as hard as rock?

I had been having this feeling that had been nagging at me all night long. I got this little tickle, like an itch, in my brain when there was something obvious that I was missing out on. I guess you could say that I was one of those people that absolutely _had _to know everything. You probably already knew that, though.

I had to admit it: I was stumped; what he was doing just didn't make any sense at all. And I wasn't a little twelve year old, so I wasn't going to blame it on something impossible, like him being a werewolf… he was too hot to be a werewolf. And not hairy enough.

"Damn it, Elena! Why can't you just come up with a reasonable conclusion? You're not stupid!" Well, at least I _hoped _I wasn't stupid. At the rate I was thinking, it was entirely possible that I just wasn't that bright.

His skin could just be a bit harder than a normal person's, or maybe he had some kind of condition. There's one thing down.

He always knew where I was because he stalked me all the time. Duh. I already knew that one…

Those were the only things I could explain to myself. There was something about him… he wasn't _human_. It was like he had a very distinct aura that told people to get out of his way; not even his brother had it, and he was whatever Damon was. And there was no way to come up with a conclusion for moving at _that _fast of a pace.

I had looked over Stefan's file that I stole from the library, and the only useful thing I got out of it was that he obviously wasn't seventeen; his file had a ton of different dates on it: it ranged from the late eighteen hundred's to present day.

_Once again: not human._

Suddenly, the answer was painfully obvious.

"Google."

I tripped over my feet as I ran from my bed to my computer, cursing like a sailor as I held my bleeding toe. I searched the ground for whatever could have caused this injury and found something shiny and sharp lying in the middle of my carpet. There was a note on top of it and I groaned as I realized whom it must have been from.

_Dear Elena,_

_I'm giving you this antique letter opener as a peace offering for the idiotic move I made on you earlier. I sincerely apologize for any discomfort I may have caused you and promise to remain distant for a while. I hope you realize that this gorgeous family heirloom has nothing on your stunning beauty._

_Yours truly,_

_Damon_

I rolled my eyes. "What the fuck?"

It was obvious that the letter was meant to mock me and it served its purpose as I hobbled over to the computer chair, leaving the "peace offering" in its position, where it had slain my poor toe. I ripped up the piece of paper in my hands as I waited for my computer to load, hoping that the low noises it was making wouldn't wake Aunt Jenna. Throwing the little shreds in the trash, I looked up to see that the Internet had finally opened.

Taking a deep breath, I typed the word "Salvatore" in the search box and hoped for the best. I scrolled down and patiently read through all of the links until I found what I was looking for. Clicking on the article with a shaky hand, I did my best not to shout at the screen as it took its own sweet time loading.

There was a little picture of Stefan in the corner, next to the article that was about to change everything.

_Recent animal attacks have been taking the lives of town citizens in Mystic Falls. Last night, an animal attacked one of the maids in the Salvatore Boarding House. The police are still looking into the case and should have the evidence they need soon._

Under the picture, there was a caption, which I read very slowly: _Stefan Salvatore was at the scene of the crime but does not wish to disclose any information regarding the case._

I stared at the picture, horrified, when I studied his face and noticed how guilty he looked. Not good. Things only got worse when I looked up to the date in the corner and noticed that this article was written in the early fifties.

I closed my eyes, struggling to remain calm. Now I knew that there was absolutely no doubt about the fact that they weren't human… but what were they?

I thought back to all of the mythical creatures that I had read about as a child: unicorns; werewolves; fairies (_that _would be interesting); vampires; ghosts; nymphs. None of them particularly struck me as something that Damon would be.

"Vampire…" I found myself muttering the word and shook my head at the ridiculousness of it all. Sure, he was like the rude, stalker version of a man from an eighteenth century romance novel; and sure, he was the palest person I had ever seen and had black eyes…but, vampire? How the hell was that feasible?

"Vampire…vampire…vampire…. _shut up_, Elena!" I was stupidly repeating the same word, loudly, over and over again because my brain was stuck in a rut. Why would he be a _vampire?_ I screeched in frustration and pounded on the wall, and then started swearing again when my fists started to hurt.

"What the hell is going on over there?" Aunt Jenna boomed from her bedroom. Damn it… I had woken the beast.

"I'm going to have bruises tomorrow and Damon Salvatore is a fairy! THAT'S what's happening over here!" I stomped back over to my bed and, once again, screamed in pain when the letter opener cut my entire foot.

Aunt Jenna burst through the door, rolling her eyes at my overly dramatic—and, not to mention, bloody—antics and dragged me down the stairs to the first aid kit that was in the kitchen, leaving a trail of blood behind us like we were in a horror movie.

This was _not _my night.

**ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ**

I woke up the next morning on the couch with a sharp and searing pain in my foot, causing me to groan and fall onto the ground. I hit my head on the coffee table on the way down, earning a hiss from my swollen and broken body.

I crawled all the way to the kitchen like a dog, getting an ice pack and hoisting myself up onto a chair. The cast Aunt Jenna put around my foot made it pretty much impossible to walk around without damaging some other part of your body (such as your head) in the process, so I really didn't see how wearing one was taking a safety precaution.

All of the sudden, Damon was standing in front of me, his arms crossed across his chest and his stance casual. "Hi."

"Goodbye."

"What will it be for breakfast this morning?"

Instead of answering his question, I decided to make my thoughts known. "Thanks for knocking, you ass."

"Cereal or peanut butter on toast?"

I rolled my eyes and sighed dramatically. "Peanut butter with toast. Heavy on the peanut butter."

He smirked. "Good. You're looking a little thin."

I slapped down my ice pack, because the headache he was giving me on top of my other headache was giving me a headache. And I was getting brain freeze.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Peanut butter is good for you!"

He shrugged. "Not in large quantities. And it just means that most girls your age are always calling themselves fat, and it's nice to see someone that doesn't do that."

"But I'm not fat."

He rolled his eyes. "This is what I'm saying." He slapped down my sandwich on a plate and handed to me, gracefully sitting down next to me in a flash. I calmly took a bite out of my sandwich, hoping he would leave and at the same time hoping he would stay.

"How do you _do _that?"

He shrugged again. "I'm a vampire."

I spit out my sandwich all over his clean black shirt, which I smile at in retrospect. "You're a _WHAT_?"

"You heard me. But you do need to keep it a secret."

"I'm sorry; I'm still stuck on the fact that you're a fucking _vampire_. I always knew there was something wrong with you."

He looked offended. "There's nothing _wrong _with me. Our species is far better than the human one. Want to find out?"

I shrieked and hopped off the chair, taking my sandwich. "No. And please don't suck my blood."

He smiled cheekily. "I can make no promises."

I sighed in annoyance. "Look; you disgust me. Go back to the little hole that you came from and stay there for the rest of the day. You are _so _not wanted here, you freak."

"Elena!" Aunt Jenna chided as she walked in the room. "Apologize."

I huffed stubbornly. "No, Aunt Jenna. Just because he's the hottest man on the face of the earth doesn't mean that he can be a complete bastard at all times!"

"Hey! I walked you home last night!"

I threw my sandwich and it landed directly on his face, which wasn't even what I was aiming for, but it worked. "You also left a silver letter opener directly where you knew it would cut my foot!"

"How did you get in her room?" Aunt Jenna asked suspiciously.

I looked at her, disgusted. "Stop it, Aunt Jenna. And I don't _know _how he got there… I have the note!"

I hobbled pathetically towards the stairs before Damon picked me up and set me on his lap, looking bored. He had somehow managed to clean his face in the five seconds I looked away from him, with my paper towel I had placed over my ice pack. "Elena, you really shouldn't be on that foot."

One panty-dropping smile was all it took for Aunt Jenna to feel at ease again. "Yeah, you shouldn't. Want some more ice?"

I looked at her. "No. Why are you here?"

"Oh, okay; I get it. You two want to have some "alone time"." I squirmed around on Damon's lap as he held me even tighter, grinning at her.

"NO!"

"Yes."

We spoke at the same time and glared at each other, causing Aunt Jenna to look even _smugger_. "Right, right. Just tell me if you need anything."

Her evil cackle lingered in the air as she ascended the staircase, leaving me alone with the monster.

"Go away, Damon."

He pouted. "I'm hurt."

"Good."

He went back into his typical angry/bored mode and sat there, glowering at me.

"Are you planning on leaving anytime soon?"

"No. Didn't we just go over this?"

I huffed. "Why do you have to be so _rude_?"

"Why do you have to be so _melodramatic? _And besides, it's part of my charm."

"Because you have _so_ much of that."

He smiled. "Now I know that you're lying."

I scoffed. "Excuse me? I'm not…"

He shushed me. "Yes, you are. One of my only redeeming qualities is having charm."

I sat there stupidly, dumbfounded. "Did you just insult yourself?"

He shrugged. "I don't care that I don't have any redeeming qualities; it makes me more interesting, and you know it."

"Well, 'interesting' would be one word for it. Maybe not the one I would pick, though. And then there's the fact that you're a vampire."

He ignored me and started humming a creepy song under his breath.

"What _is _that?"

He seemed almost startled that I didn't know what song it was. "You've never heard of David Bowie? He's only one of the best musicians of all time."

"It's atrocious!"

He scowled. "It's not atrocious; it's _Ashes to Ashes, _and it's good."

I disagreed strongly with that statement but figured it would be best to keep my lips shut on that one, because he was starting to get a little touchy.

"Fine, fine. David Bullet or whatever is good."

"It's _Bowie!_"

"Who cares? Have you ever heard of Beyonce?"

His nose wrinkled. "Unfortunately. How my ears didn't burst while I listened to that garbage is beyond me…"

I slapped his arm and only hurt myself. "Hey! She's good!"

He rolled his eyes. "Sure; whatever you say, sweetheart."

I closed my eyes in frustration. "You can leave any time now…"

"… But I'm not going to."

I let out a sigh that sounded like a hiss and tried to break free from his hold. "Let go of me."

"Why?"

I screamed as his lips came in contact with my throat. "Get off! Get off! Get him off of me!"

He sighed disgustedly and released me, wiping his hands on his jeans like I had some kind of disease and standing up. "Jesus, Elena. I think the neighbors know. Could you scream just a little bit louder, in case the rest of the town doesn't?"

"It would be my pleasure. Don't you ever put your freaky-assed fangs near my neck again!"

A threatening, open-mouthed smile from him caused me to squeak. "You're right, you know. There are _much _better places that they could be."

He laughed as I repeated the word "ewe" over and over again, hopping up and down… because _that _was going to help me.

"I'm leaving, now."

I rolled my eyes as he literally disappeared before them, not liking how used I was becoming to this.

"Oh, my God. He's a vampire!"

**ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXZY**

I spent the rest of the day pouring over articles on the Internet.

There were so many of them that I didn't even know where to begin: _Salvatore Founding Family; Katherine Pierce becomes engaged to Salvatore brother? ; More Animal Attacks at the Salvatore Boarding House_… the list went on and on.

They must have been popular, back then, to get in the news so often.

"Ugh. I wonder how _old _he is." Oh, my God. I kissed him and he could be fucking _ancient_… and I was worried about when I turned forty.

"Gross. He could be classified as a pedophile." I considered turning him in for a brief second before deciding that life would be boring without him; I could just deal with a little _less _of him. It's not like anyone would believe me, anyway.

_Excuse me, officer? There's a vampire named Damon Salvatore that should be locked up because he won't leave me alone. Thank you!_

Yeah… _that'd _go over well.

Frustrated that I wasn't finding anything useful… although I did feel an unexplainable hatred towards Katherine Pierce… I looked through Stefan's file again, still not finding anything.

"What's the point of writing an article if you're not going to give me any useful information?"

I was tired; I was grouchy; and I was hungry.

"Aunt Jenna?" I called out.

"What?"

"Dinner."

I heard her stomping up the stairs. "What about it?"

I smiled at her, because she was now leaning against my door. "I'd actually like to have some, if you don't mind."

She rolled her eyes dramatically. "What do I have to do for a 'please' around here?"

"A lot more then whatever it is you're doing now."

I groaned when a dirty dishrag landed on top of my head, making my shiny golden hair smell like cleaning chemicals and look like someone had poured gross-looking olive oil all over my head.

"Why don't you take care of that? Since I'm not doing enough?"

"Thanks, Aunt Jenna."

I stalked into the bathroom to find a note taped to the window across from the shower—but it wasn't Damon's handwriting. It read:

_Meet me outside the graveyard at nine o'clock this evening. –S_

I wrinkled my nose as I realized that 'S' could only be 'Stefan', who I _really _wasn't in the mood to see. However, I could always grill him for information…

I ripped up the note, already having its contents memorized, and began taking off my clothes while I turned on the hot water.

"Have a hot date tonight?"

I shrieked as I covered up my chest, turning around to see Damon leaning casually against my wall, the door already closed.

"How did you get in here?" I make myself sound so intelligent, sometimes.

This thought clearly reflected on his face. "The door…"

"But I didn't hear it open."

He smirked. "Well, your lesser human instincts can put a damper on things. If you take a ride on the wild side, you'd be able to know that your aunt is downstairs right now, ordering Chinese take-out and planning on taking credit for it."

I scoffed. "How stupid does she think we are?"

He shrugged. "Do you really want to know the answer to that?"

I scowled. "Get out. Now."

He held his hands up in defense. "Fine. I'm just here to tell you that you shouldn't go meet with Stefan tonight. He doesn't always have control over himself."

"Because you do?"

"I'm just warning you."

"Haven't I already dealt with you once for today?"

And he was gone.

I looked down and saw that my cast was still on… and it was annoying me… With a savage, predator-like noise, I ripped it off and threw it across the ground. My foot felt happy to be free; the air wasn't feeling so great on the cut, though.

I growled in annoyance and took the rest of my clothes off and stepped into the water, cringing at how hot it was; it was like someone was holding a bunch of pans against my back that had just come off of a high-heated stove.

"What the hell?" The shower almost never got this hot. I realized that it was probably because I was already steaming hot from talking to Damon, which made me angry and turned on, which equals heat.

It's a simple equation, kids.

I washed my hair with my shampoo that supposedly made it extra shiny and soaked it in conditioner, washing my body with something that vaguely smelled like Sweet Peas that I got for a dollar at Wal-Mart.

When I stepped of the shower, I toweled off, blow-dried my hair and put my makeup on—I might as well look good, if I was going to go to the effort to sneak out tonight.

I came downstairs to find that Aunt Jenna actually had the nerve—and the stupidity—to try to pass off take-out food as her own, just because she put the food in a big bowl. She didn't even bother to put the plastic cartons that had the store's name on them away…

"Where's it from?" Jeremy asked as he joined us.

Aunt Jenna looked uncomfortable. "I made this, Jeremy."

He snorted. "No, you didn't."

They started arguing and I ran over to the counter, grabbing the cartons and placing them down. "There. Problem solved."

We sat in silence for most of dinner and I noticed that my hand had started to shake, which was a sign for all of us that I was up to something.

"What are you up to?"

I put on my best poker face. "What are you talking about, Aunt Jenna?"

"Your hand is shaking. That means you're up to something."

I rolled my eyes. "Can't a girl's hand shake without a reason? God!"

I stalked away melodramatically, hoping that my little fit had deterred her. Aunt Jenna was like the stereotype of a shark… she could be stupid, but she could smell things from miles away. In this case, she could smell a lie.

"Where are you going?"

I turned around to face her and looked at the clock, realizing that I was going to be late if I didn't hurry. Who knew eating could take so long? "Out!"

I dashed out the door while waving goodbye, causing myself to trip and get a bloody scrape on my knee.

"Damn it! That was a new pair of jeans!" I shook my head in anger and continued to hobble to the best of my ability around town. My foot was hurting and my knee was dripping with blood. Why it didn't occur to me that walking up to an 'uncontrollable' vampire with a bloody wound didn't seem like it could be potentially dangerous, I don't know.

"Stupid fucking heinous vampires."

"Excuse me?"

I looked up to see that Stefan was right in front of me, looking terrified and angry. Not to mention hungry, but that didn't process in my stupid head at that moment.

"Oh, drop the act, Stefan. I know you're a vampire."

His eyes narrowed. "Could you lower your voice, in that case? The whole town doesn't need to know!"

While Damon's comments were rude, they were said in more of a matter-of-fact or humorous way. This side of Stefan was vicious, like a tiger that was hungry.

"Fine, fine. What do you want?"

He sighed in annoyance. "Well, I _was _going to warn you to stay away from my stupid brother. However, it would seem that you've already gotten to know him far too well, so I think I'll just stay out of it."

I finally noticed the way his eyes were completely focused on my blood-soaked knee, looking like he was seconds away from going into a frenzy.

I instantly went into panic when he started moving forward, not taking his eyes off of my leg. I placed my other leg in front of that one in an attempt to get him to re-focus, which was all it took for him to go over the edge. With a terrifying growl, he leapt at me and knocked me onto the ground, going straight for my blood. I was screaming and kicking everywhere, feebly thinking that a mere townsperson could take down a vampire.

Out of a tree hopped Damon, who knocked his brother out of the way and won the wrestling match without a whole hell of a lot of effort.

He was over next to me in a flash, kneeling down. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak. He gently helped me sit up before turning around to smack Stefan back onto the ground when he came back for me again.

"Come on, little brother. Time to get you home."

Stefan's eyes were sad and hungry as he was towed away from me, leaving me to stay there, curled up and terrified. What had just happened was something that only happened in fiction novels; it was at that point that I one hundred and ten percent believed the Salvatore brothers were vampires.

The walk home was a blur, because I was quickly losing blood from the holes that Stefan's fangs had put in my leg. I was dizzy and light-headed as Aunt Jenna patched me up and laid me down on the couch, leaving me there to fall asleep.

And what did I dream of, you might ask? I think you already know.

**ANCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ**

I woke up sometime after midnight when I felt weight sag the couch down. I knew from my body's reaction that it was Damon before I saw him in the dark light, his pale skin shining brightly and contrasting even more than usual against his black eyes.

"What are you doing here?" My voice was foggy and thick.

He shrugged. "I just thought I'd check up on you."

"Thanks."

I made an attempt to sit up, but he lightly pushed back down on my stomach. "No. You need to rest."

I nodded sleepily.

"Elena?"

"Hmm?" I was too tired to deal with this.

"You're not safe here."

"I know that." I didn't know that I knew that, but apparently I did.

"You can come with me for a couple of days."

I opened one eye because I was too lazy to open them both. "You're bringing this up at this time on purpose."

He smiled. "I know. But you're safer at my house, and Bonnie's already there."

My heart automatically started aching when he mentioned her. "Oh, please. What's that bitch doing there?"

He rolled his eyes. "You don't have to die; I know you miss her. It's okay."

My eyes welled up with unwanted tears. "She doesn't want to talk to me."

He shrugged. "You don't know that, yet. Only one way to find out."

I don't know why, but I was desperate to see Bonnie again. "What do I do?"

"Just write a note saying that you'll be back in a couple of days and that you're safe. You're with a friend."

I smiled when he said that. "So now you're my friend?"

"We're getting there."

"Get me a pen and a piece of paper."

In less than fifteen seconds, he was already back, handing me what I had asked for. I wrote a note saying that I needed some time to myself and that I would be back soon; Aunt Jenna would see right through it, but it was the only thing I had at the moment.

He took it from me and placed it on the counter, scooping me up into his arms… and then we were off into the night.

"Okay. Here we go."

**AN: I need feedback! Any and all reviews are appreciated. Thanks so much for reading! :) **

**Love,**

**Evangeline**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to review. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries or Saw IV. **

** Chapter Five**

"Damn you, Damon!"

I had woken up in the old Salvatore boarding house, having no recollection of what had happened the night before. The air was dusty and smelled like musk, causing me to cough as I got up to try to find Damon. My head was throbbing and my skin was paler than usual, which I was assuming was from my lack of blood.

On the way there, I saw Stefan and made this weird squeaking noise as I ran past him, because the last thing I could remember was that freak drinking the blood out of my knee. He sighed sadly and waved, while I scowled at him and stomped into the kitchen, only to find it to be empty. And that meant that I would have to talk to him…

"Hey!" I called out to him, because he was at the end of the hallway.

He looked back at me, surprised. "Yes?"

"Where's Damon's room?"

He went back to looking disgusted. "Go up the flight of stairs and turn to the left. You'll come face to face with doom."

"Thanks." I completely ignored his last comment and rushed up the stairs, annoyed and wondering why I was here. Sure enough, Stefan gave me the correct instructions and I was face to face with Damon (or my doom).

"Hello."

I smacked his arm. "Hello? Don't tell me that! Why the hell am I here?"

He rolled his eyes. "Here we go with being dramatic again. You're here because I saved your life… you're welcome."

"I didn't _thank _you."

He raised his eyebrow and waited in silence.

"_Thank you."_

"You're _welcome."_

He didn't elaborate, which I knew he did just to annoy me.

"Okay, let me rephrase: why am I in your house?"

Good luck finding your way out of _that _one.

He sighed. "You're in my house because there've been reported 'animal' attacks all around town."

My slow brain simply wasn't processing. "So? There are lots of 'animals' in the world. I appreciate the gesture, but I really do need to be getting home…"

He gently grabbed my arm, preventing me from going anywhere. "What would you do if you were in a room with two hungry, ravenous vampires that couldn't control themselves?"

_Oh. _"Am I in that situation now?"

He scowled. "Do I look like I'm about to eat you?"

Yummy. _Don't go there, Elena…. Just don't do it. _

"Well, maybe you wouldn't warn me."

He shook his head. "If I was going to, you would know."

I felt the all-too familiar shivers creep up my spine as I stared him down.

"Okay, then. So there's a bunch of vampires in town?"

He groaned. "A bunch would be an understatement. We don't know how they got here, but we know that they're here, and they're not planning on going anywhere."

I felt myself. "So, you brought me all the way here just because you didn't want me to get hurt?"

He rolled his eyes and looked down. "Aren't you hungry for breakfast?"

I threw my arms around his waist, touched that he actually cared about me that much. "Awe, Damon! You care about me!"

He mumbled something along the lines of, "No, I don't," but we both knew better. He pried my hands off of him and towed me down the stairs, ignoring the bitchy glares he was getting from Stefan.

"Why don't you take your hands off of her?"

We both groaned in annoyance. "Stefan, go away. You tried to attack her last night, remember?"

He growled at him, causing me to squeak in fear, because it was the same sound he had made at me last night. Damon gave me a pat on the shoulder and sat me down in a chair before turning to face him.

"Damon, she doesn't want you!"

"Well, she sure as hell doesn't want _you!_ She scared of you!"

He pointed at me and I was humiliated to see that my hands were shaking as I watched them argue.

Stefan came to sit next to me and I kicked him in the shin, which was only hurting myself; it got a laugh out of Damon, though.

"Elena, I am _so sorry _for what happened last night. It shouldn't have happened and I feel absolutely hideous for it."

I crinkled my eyebrows. _"Hideous?"_

He hung his head. "Hideous. I'm ugly on the inside and out."

Wow… that was _so true. _

"Oh, stop it, Stefan. A simple 'I'm sorry' would've done."

He pouted and looked to apologize again, but I raised my hand. "No. Do not speak. Just go back to your room and wallow in misery for the pain that you have caused me."

He walked back to his room, looking melancholy, and I turned back to Damon.

"So… what's for breakfast?"

A brief look of panic crossed his face. "Um… could you hold on for a second?"

He raided the cupboards and the drawers and everything else in the kitchen before it finally occurred to me that _vampires don't eat anything._

What the hell was _wrong _with me?

"You don't eat anything, do you?"

"… No."

We stared at each other for a long time, neither one of us having anything to say.

"Well, I guess there's no breakfast, then."

He shrugged. "I can go out and get you something."

And be left alone with an angry and sad Stephanie and an even angrier Bonnie? Wait a second… Bonnie?

"Damon, why's Bonnie here?" It was just now occurring to me that he had mentioned that she was here last night.

He looked kind of guilty. "Well… she's sort of how we found out about the vampires. You see; she got attacked."

The world froze for a minute as I pictured weak little Bonnie being attacked by strong and lethal vampires. It was hard to imagine, but somehow I did; and I wished that I hadn't.

"Well, is she okay?" My voice sounded frantic even to my own ears, which was ridiculous, because she didn't want to be my friend anymore. Why should she matter to me?

He still looked guilty, which was never a good sign. "Well… you know…"

"No, I don't know. Otherwise, I wouldn't have asked you."

I was irritated at how terse my voice sounded as I snapped at him, like an angry turtle coming out of its shell.

"She's in a state of shock."

Well, now _I'm _in a state of shock. Really, that news shouldn't have been that surprising to me; it was simple: the human brain stopped functioning for a while to block out the thoughts of such a disturbing event. Still, hearing that she wasn't going to respond to anything that I said to her was frightening.

"Will she stop?"

"You mean, stop being in shock?"

I rolled my eyes. "No, you dumb ass; I'm wondering if she'll stop studying for her algebra test. Of course I want to know if she's going to stop being in shock!"

He started muttering something about me being ungrateful and rude under his breath as I stood in front of him with my arms folded over my chest, looking like a petulant five year old that didn't get the toy they wanted in their happy meal.

I could always give Damon a happy meal…

I cursed my vulgar thoughts and concentrated on being upset, but it wasn't working.

"Damon! Will she be okay?"

"She'll be _fine._"

I sighed in relief. "I want to see her."

His eyes flashed in panic. "No."

"Well, why the hell not?"

He seemed to be struggling to come up with an answer. "Hold on… let me think of an answer that you'd actually buy."

I growled and shoved past him, running up the stairs and opening random doors, only to slam them shut again when Bonnie wouldn't be in them. He followed me slowly, obviously amused by my displeasure, and made no effort to stop me as I slowly wore down all of my energy.

I was sagging over and panting heavily, while he stood next to me and laughed. I slapped him on the arm, yet again forgetting that it wasn't fucking hurting him.

"Ugh! I have to stop doing that." My voice sounded disgusting and wheezy. I braced myself on my knees and he put his arm around my waist for support, letting me lean all of my weight on him. Of course, he didn't feel any of it.

"You'll figure it out eventually."

I raised an eyebrow.

"That hitting me is only going to hurt yourself?"

My hand automatically hit him when I heard his insinuating that I was stupid, and I knew that there would me plenty of bruises the next day.

"I'm not stupid!"

"Who said you were stupid?"

I struggled against his grip and he released me without any effort, going back to his usual bored expression. I scowled at him and sat down, wincing as I uselessly grabbed at my ribcage. Running _really _wasn't for me; you'll never see me try out for track, and that's for sure.

"Where is she?"

"Stop asking me that."

"Where is she?"

He rested his head against the wall. "No."

"Yes."

He looked at me strangely. "Do you even know what we're arguing about?"

"Yes… no… I want to see her!"

He groaned in frustration and threw me over his shoulder before I could blink. Even as I banged my fists against his rock-hard back and screamed in his ear to put me down, it was just for show; my position was actually quite comfortable. I smiled smugly as I realized that I could see the top of his head; for some reason, it made me feel like we were more equal that way.

He started humming something again as we descended the stairs, and I knew that he was jostling me on purpose, for the sake of annoying me. My throat was making strange noises as my head bounced up and down, and up and down, all the blood flowing there and making me dizzy.

"Is that David Buoy again?" My voice echoed loudly throughout the empty house.

"It's _Bowie._ And, no. This is _the Cure._"

I'd never heard any of their music, either, but at least I'd heard kids at school talk about them.

"Who are they?" Every time he mentioned something, I felt that annoying urge to learn more about it.

He sighed in annoyance. "You know what? Just forget it. What do you want for breakfast?"

I tried to bite down on his shoulder, but I could feel my teeth threatening to chip, so I stopped. "_Damn. _And I want to see Bonnie!"

He stopped abruptly, causing me to smash into his body, which felt like granite.

"Owe!"

"Shush." He looked completely zoned out, and I held onto him for dear life as he lurched forward at lighting speed. The nausea came and went as he continued to do this, and it soon got old as he made random little stops all throughout the house.

I huffed as he listened intently to something, almost afraid to do anything; stupidly, I figured whispering in his ear would be better than just speaking like a normal person.

"What are you listening to?"

He looked startled to see me… wow; he really _did_ zone out completely. "Get off of my back."

He suddenly looked very predatory; like a shark that was searching for its prey. "Go downstairs; you'll find Bonnie there."

I ran away from him, my instincts telling me that whatever was upstairs wasn't safe. My feet trembled as I dashed down the stairs, for once in my life not falling down them.

"Bonnie?"

I heard a weird noise coming from a cage-like object that was in the left corner of the basement. I cautiously approached it, curiosity taking over as I wondered what the hell could possibly be in there.

"Bonnie?"

The noise was becoming much more clear now: there was a low moaning noise, and the sound of a chair creaking up and down.

"Oh, Bonnie. What _are _you doing in there?"

My dirty mind froze as I screamed, watching in fascinated horror as Bonnie thrashed around in a chair. Her petite body was taped to one of those chairs that you'd see in a middle school, and her face was evil looking as she desperately tried to escape. Her nails were scraping at the tape that was binding her, chipping away.

She looked… possessed.

Her normally calm and smooth face was full of rage as she tried to tear out of that chair, and I soon realized that if she did, only the metal bars of the cage would be between us. Terrified, I took a step back.

The kicking was getting harder and her screams were more and more anguished sounding with each one that came out of her bloody lips. They were soaked with the familiar red color as she bit down on them, causing the blood to drip down her chin and onto the floor.

"Damon?" I called out. I could vaguely hear loud thuds over Bonnie's antics and hoped that everything was all right up there, because it sure as hell wasn't down here.

All of the sudden, her chaotic movements ceased and her eyelids started fluttering as if she were waking up from a deep and peaceful slumber. I watched as she stared at me, looking confused and hurt, and feebly tried to break loose from the super-strong tape.

"Elena? What's going on? Where am I? And why haven't you been at school?"

I stared back at her, more than a little confused. "Bonnie, I'm being homeschooled, remember?"

She shook her head, causing her bright-red hair to frizz up even more; under normal circumstances, I would've laughed and asked her when she decided to get an Afro.

Tears were starting to pool in her wide eyes. "I don't know what's happening. Just get me out of here, okay?"

I thought about it… what if Damon had her locked in here for a reason? And after that psychotic episode she had just been through, I didn't want anywhere near her without something separating us.

I shook my head. "No. I think I'll wait for Damon to come down here."

She was starting to breath more quickly. "Who's Damon? Where AM I?"

I used my hand to tell her to lower her voice, similar to how a teacher would do to a first grader, and breathed in and out deeply. She soon followed the suit and we were doing much better.

"Where am I?" She sounded scared and vulnerable, which frightened me. What if I wasn't doing the right thing?

"You're in the old Salvatore boarding house. We used to think it was haunted, remember?"

She nodded. "Yeah; that was so stupid."

Suddenly, something struck me: was I supposed to tell her that she was in a house with two vampires? Surely, it wouldn't be a comforting thought to little Bonnie, but she probably had a right to know.

"Well… not really."

"Well, why not?"

I sighed hesitantly before continuing. "They're vampires." There; quick and easy.

What I wasn't expecting, though, was her reaction. Instead of the tears of terror that I had been expecting, I was watching her laugh hysterically, shaking the chair from all of the noise she was making.

"Bonnie, shut up! That's not exactly what I'd call funny."

She reduced her laughter down to chuckles. "Yeah… _vampires. _You always have been hilarious, Elena."

I could feel my temper start to rise before I could stop it. Why would I make up something ridiculous as fucking _vampires?_

"I'm not joking! Now cut it out."

She only laughed harder and I shouted in frustration, punching the wall and taking steps back. I couldn't decide if I preferred the laughing or the screaming; one was terrifying, and the other one was ear splitting.

You just can't win either way.

"Bonnie, stop laughing."

She ignored me and clutched her stomach in agony; still laughing like there was no tomorrow. I continued to back up until I felt my back hit something hard and tall. I gasped as I turned around to see a grim-looking Damon standing before me.

"Damon!"

"That would be my name."

I ignored his sarcasm for once. "What happened? Are you under control?"

He scowled angrily at me. "Do you really think I would come down here if I wasn't under control?"

I shrugged and stared, waiting for the answer to my question. "Stefan wasn't under control when he asked me to meet him."

"First: _who_, exactly, told you _not _to meet him that night?"

Damn. "You," I grumbled.

"And, Stefan's an idiot; you can't trust any decision he makes because half of the time, he doesn't spend any time looking at _either _side of the story, and the other half, he spends hour after hour obsessing over little details that are barely even relevant."

"Well, that's just peachy. Why were being like that upstairs?"

"We had visitors."

Oddly enough, as much as that sentence should've scared the hell out of me, I felt perfectly safe with rude and brooding Damon at my side; I knew that nothing was going to happen to me as long as he was here. The girl in the cage, however, had different thoughts.

Her eyes widened and Bonnie shrieked for no reason, all of her laughter forgotten; and it was right back to the beginning, with her looking like she walked straight out of the _Exorcist. _

"Bonnie! Why are you screaming?"

It was too late; she was gone. I felt tears of frustration well up in my eyes and hid my face from Damon, not wanting to show him my momentary weakness. His strength was one of my favorite things about him, after all.

He sighed. "She's just going through shock again. She's reliving what's just happened in her mind, over and over again. She's feeling that weird little feeling, where you can tell that someone's behind you; she's feeling the predator's eyes on her back as she slowly turns around; she's feeling the razor sharp teeth slice through her delicate skin, ripping and tearing it apart as the predator sucks the life out of her—

"Damon!" I interrupted him. "Shut up! _Way _too much information." What he had just shared with me was something that I wouldn't be able to get out of my head for a couple of days.

"Fine. I was just explaining it to you."

"Not in _that _much detail!"

He shrugged. "Fine. I'll keep that in mind for future reference."

I glowered at him. He smiled back, looking cheerful, and wiping the blood off of his hands that I hadn't noticed on his black jeans.

"Why's there blood on your hands?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I said we _had _visitors."

Why isn't this creeping me out? I should be running from this hellhole, screaming my lungs out… but there I stood, not feeling an ounce of fear in my body.

"Well, that's not very hospitable."

He rolled his eyes and began ascending the stairs. "I'll be in my bedroom."

Right… because I knew where that was….

I turned to my ex-best friend, saddened by her thrashing form, and walking towards her carefully.

"Bonnie?" My voice was soft and sweet, like I was talking to a child.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and I panicked, fearing that Damon was downplaying this supposed "shock" she was in. Palming the cold and damp walls, I searched for some sort of key that could free her but found nothing.

I knew Damon would hear if I asked him for help, but I also knew that he would ignore me.

"Hold on, Bonnie."

I didn't know why I was telling her this, because she obviously couldn't hear me, but I kept on reassuring her that everything was going to be all right. My palms were injured and bleeding from the rough surface of the wall, but I ignored the sharp pains and kept looking.

Before I could find it, though, she had stopped again.

"Elena?"

I held my breath and turned around to see a tear-soaked Bonnie, looking even more scared and confused than before.

"Yes, Bonnie?"

Her crying was making it hard to understand her, but I somehow managed to. "Will you let me out?"

My heart broke at the sight of her, trapped inside of a cage like an animal, and crying like she was never going to get out of it. Actually, I didn't know that she _was _getting out of it, at that point.

I was torn; the more logical and clear-thinking side of me was telling my brain that Damon obviously had her locked in here for a reason, and I shouldn't dare mess with his seemingly flawless logic… after all, it hadn't failed me, thus far.

As we all know, though, I firmly believe that logic is overrated.

I groaned in frustration and rubbed my sweaty, bloody palms against each other out of habit, which only fueled the pain that was becoming more and more prominent. My hands literally felt like they were on fire, and it was all just because of a few little scrapes.

"Damn it!" I didn't know what it was that caused me to shout out so loudly; maybe it was the searing pain, or maybe it was the internal struggles that I was facing at that moment. Whatever it was, it caused Bonnie to stop crying and look at me curiously, like _I _was the animal at the zoo.

How ironic was that?

"Elena, you don't look so good."

For some reason, this offended me greatly. "You know what? You don't look so good, yourself."

I said this as I looked her over again, noting that her hair had somewhat deflated and was now sticking to her damp face. The little bit of makeup she wore on her eyes streaked down her cheeks, and her face was paler than ever.

Her face saddened instantly. "Let me out. Please!"

I guess the logic took over, for whatever reason. "I'm sorry."

The sobs were getting louder and louder as she just sat there, looking bewildered. "Why not? What's the big deal?"

"Bonnie, you were attacked. I don't exactly know what's happening, but I know that I have to keep you here. Can you please just behave?"

She leaned back in her chair and ignored me, muttering under her breath; I could see that she was slowly turning back to normal. This meant, of course, that she had to try one more time.

"Just let me go. I don't know what the hell happened, but I promise to never tell anyone."

I turned and walked away, conflicted, as she sighed. The stairs seemed long as I walked up them, not too eager to run into either one of the Salvatore brothers. Right off the bat, Stefan appeared out of nowhere and was in front of me.

"Elena, I'm sorry."

I rolled my eyes and walked past him, into the living room, taking in the scenery: the old house really was beautiful, once you got past the initial creepiness from all of the haunted house stories. A grand chandelier hung from the wall, right between the couch and chairs that were placed across from each other; the walls were painted a deep, dark red; and the wooden floor creaked as you walked anywhere, giving it a homey feel. I could definitely imagine Damon and Stefan standing right where I stood, a hundred years ago, having no knowledge of what was to come.

Stefan was beside me in a flash and stood a little bit too close, but still giving me my space, which I appreciated.

"I'll never forgive myself for what I did."

I had had enough of his fucking stupid antics. "Stefan, shut the fuck up! There's no way you're even a vampire; you seem like some stupid emo kid that just wears too much guyliner and walks around, all brooding and such, because you can't accept the fact that your life is normal. So stop being like that, because it's not getting you anywhere."

He stared at me quietly, before finally speaking. "Do you recall what started your rather heated argument?"

Oh, yeah; he drank my blood. I don't think most emo kids were quite _that _devoted…

"Just leave me alone, Stefan." That intelligent response was the only thing I could manage to muster as I stalked away from him and sat down on one of the couch, feeling uncomfortable as I recognized that his eyes were still on my back. He slowly approached me, taking his own sweet time as he lounged in one of the leather chairs, which made a weird farting noise as he sat down.

He stared at me awkwardly as it made a particularly loud noise, obviously panicked that my weak human senses had caught onto his unfortunate mishap.

I glowered at him, displeased that he was still bothering me. "Well, say excuse me."

"But, I didn't…"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, but you made _the noise_, which is what it's all about. Actually, the noise and the smell, but still… you probably wreak of my blood, anyway."

He sighed dramatically and made several more farting noises as he stood up, trying to keep what was left of his dignity (not that he had any to begin with) as he walked away. "I'm leaving; you're far too cold-hearted."

I smiled evilly as he exited the room, and I knew that Damon was proud of me in that moment; I relaxed and flipped on the TV, looking for something good. I found _Saw IV_, which I heard was bloody and disgusting, and clicked on it, having no idea what I was in for.

_I want to play a game… live or die, make your choice… hair being disconnected from people's heads… knife chairs… spikes through people… autopsies with naked old men and messages that they've left in their hearts. _ It was all too much, and none of it made any sense. Who was this Jigsaw person and what was he doing? He was obviously some fucked up freak, and that's for sure.

The gore was a little bit too detailed for my stomach and I flipped the television off, closing my eyes and shuttering, trying to get images out of my head that I could've lived without seeing. Maybe some day I would watch the _Saw _saga and come to appreciate its harsh grisliness; I sincerely doubted it, though.

I realized that I had killed a couple of hours and it was dinnertime, my stomach acting as a built-in alarm clock for food time.

"Hey, Stephanie?"

I heard a growl, the sound of dishes breaking, and then he was there in front of me with no warning.

"Oh. Hi. What's for dinner?"

"My name is not _Stephanie. _It is _Stefan._"

I shrugged. "Don't care. Never have, never will. What's for dinner?"

He rolled his eyes melodramatically. "Why don't you ask your _boyfriend_?"

It was my turn to roll my eyes. "I don't have one at the moment. And I asked _you_."

He contemplated for a minute. "Well, I can't cook; what do you want?"

I thought about all of the options: sandwich, pasta, and salad… soup.

"Soup, please."

"Where from and what kind?"

"Don't care and chicken noodle."

He shoved his jacket over his broad shoulders, scowling like it was the end of the world. "I'll be back in twenty minutes, tops."

I didn't want to thank the bastard, but the manners I had been raised with kicked in automatically. "Thank you."

He mumbled something as he slammed the door shut behind him, trudging out into the night to fetch me my dinner. As I leaned back into the couch, I felt myself slowly drift into a peaceful and light sleep until the beast woke me up by shaking my shoulders roughly.

"What? What? Is there a fire?" I knew I sounded stupid, but the panicked look on his face freaked me out. Don't you ever say things when you're just waking up that you kind of regret later in the morning (or, in this case, evening)?

"No. Your dinner is here."

I sat up as he took his hands off of me and handed me a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup, already leaving the room. "You're welcome."

"Thank you."

I heard his footsteps approach the room again and groaned under my breath, not wanting to have to make small talk with him.

"What do you want? And how much do I owe you?" I didn't actually have any money on hand, but I always hated it when people paid for things for me.

He shrugged. "Don't worry about it. I'm hurrying out to size up our competition."

My heart sunk as I realized that he was going out to risk his life for the three of us in the house, bravely trying to defend the town. It wasn't that I cared about him; it was more of that I cared about what he was doing. That's why I found myself saying words that I never thought I'd hear myself say.

"Be careful, would you?"

He smiled slightly before he could cover it up. "You know I will."

I raised my eyebrow at his uncharacteristically smart-sounding comment as he left the house, wondering what had gotten him in such a good mood. I looked down at my bowl of soup and knew that I couldn't finish it, but there was someone who could.

I carefully walked down the stairs, trying not to splash hot soup all over my chest and also hoping in vain that Damon wouldn't hear.

"Bonnie?'

I immediately noticed that she wasn't sitting in the chair anymore; someone had freed her, and she was sitting on the floor with a dreamy expression on her face. Her cheeks had an almost red glow and her eyes were sparkling, which could only mean one thing. Ewe.

"Oh, God. Tell me you didn't."

She didn't look surprised to see me. "Tell you I didn't do what?"

The thought was getting more and more disgusting with each passing moment. "Tell me you didn't fuck Stefan."

She had the audacity to giggle as she stood up. "I could; but I'd be lying."

"Oh, gross! What the hell is _wrong _with you?"

She cocked her head to the side. "Haven't you seen his feet? They're not the only thing that's big, you know…"

I struggled to fight against my gag reflex as she sighed dreamily, supporting her body weight against the bars.

"Bonnie! That's disgusting!"

Her eyes narrowed. "You're just jealous because you're not getting any."

I stared at her, shocked; Bonnie had always been the innocent one, so hearing her say that she was getting more sex than I was was mind-boggling.

I shook my head as if it would clear my thoughts. "Let's not focus on me right now."

"Okay. What do you want to talk about, then?"

I was hesitant to touch on the subject, but I knew that it had to be done. "Do you remember anything from the night of the attack, Bonnie?"

Her eyes hardened. "Of course I do; it's not every night that vampires come along and try to kill you, only to leave you for dead meat when they get bored."

I stared at her, shocked. "You know?"

She laughed sarcastically. "Yeah, I know; I have longer than you have."

I'm pretty sure my jaw was touching the floor. "Well… how?"

"You know what, Elena? Why do you always have to know everything? Why can't you just accept the fact that you can't be in on everything and just let it go, huh?"

I stared at her, bewildered. "_Bonnie_!"

She wasn't done, though." For our entire relationship, it was always about what you wanted. I'm so sick and tired of pleasing you all the time… I have a life, you know! It can be hard to believe, but some of us actually care about things besides ourselves."

My eyes were stinging with humiliated tears as she continued to tear me down. "You're such an ugly bitch, on the inside and out. Why was I ever friends with someone like you? You're just so _stupid!_"

My voice was quiet and feeble. "You don't mean that." Oh, great; even my voice sounded watery. Why don't we just publish it in the newspaper? I can see the headline now: _Elena Gilbert Cries! What _Will _the World Do?_

Her eyes looked devilish as she took all of her anger out on me. "Oh, but I do."

She continued on with her rampage as I just stood there, weak and defenseless, trying to stand up for myself and failing. Eventually, I settled for running up the stairs like a deer in the headlights and kept running until I reached the top floor. I searched every room on the floor until I came to the very last one, jumping onto the bed next to a bored looking (surprise, surprise) Damon.

"What the hell?"

I could feel the tears begin to slip before I could stop them and I buried my face in his pillow, determined not to let him see me in this state. He gave me an awkward little pat on the back and left his hand there; giving me a pleasant and unfamiliar feeling as he slowly rubbed my tense muscles in deep, smooth circles.

"Hey, now. What's going on?" His voice was softer than usual and I sadly looked up at him, ashamed that my eyes were undoubtedly red and puffy, and not to mention ugly. I had self-esteem, but some of the comments Bonnie had made struck home run with me as I replayed her voice in my head, over and over again.

I ignored him and placed my face back in the pillow, and he let me cry myself out until I was finally done. I sat up and clutched my head, the headache already beginning to fester as I slowly lay down on my back and he watched me, concerned.

"What _happened_?"

I sighed deeply. "It was nothing; just something that Bonnie had said. It was totally uncalled for, but it's over, now."

"It didn't look like nothing."

I shrugged. "Do you mind if I sleep in here tonight? I know that it's kind of weird, but I don't really want to be alone in this state."

He answered by making more room for me and casually draping an arm around my side, pulling me to him. It was simple, but I was all I needed to fall asleep; the thing I woke up to next was both hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

Stefan was leaning over me, is nostrils flaring and his eyes filled with rage.

"What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On. Here?"

I bit my lip and pulled the sheets up higher on myself out of instinct, even though I was fully clothed, not wanting him to see me like this; I was sure that I was a mess, after what had happened last night, and the last thing I needed was him talking about it for the next couple of days.

"What's the matter, Stefan? We're just sleeping together." The statement sounded innocent enough to me, but it meant something else entirely to him.

"You're just _sleeping together_? What is _wrong _with you? I leave home for all of two hours and come home to a distraught Bonnie downstairs and… _this!_ You should be ashamed of yourselves!"

I didn't like the tone he was using with us and my temper flared up, which certainly wasn't going to do me any favors.

"I needed him, okay? Is that so bad?"

He looked horrified as he stumbled out of the room, and I felt the bed shift as Damon followed him, grumbling lowly. Jesus, his low voice was sexy.

I shrugged and happily fell back asleep, my own innuendos lost on me as I fell asleep to a picture of Damon that I always had inside my head. All of the drama could wait for tomorrow.

**AN: Oh, and drama there will be! I know that Bonnie seems like a bitch, but she'll explain her actions in the next couple of chapters. Review for more sexy Damon and snarky Elena! :)**

**IMPORTANT: This story and API can now be found on my LJ account, which you can find on my profile. Just as this chapter is, chapters for this story typically go up on Sunday over there, so go check it out! Thanks so much for taking the time to R and R.**

**Love,**

**Evangeline**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: I am SO SORRY that it took me so long to update! Life's been really crazy; see AN at after this chapter for more information. Again, so sorry! **

**AN2: Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to review. ;) Enjoy! **

**PS: If anyone sees any grammar issues, feel free to tell me. I hate errors but I'm rushing to get this chapter up, so I can't promise that it'll be perfect. :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the **_**Vampire Diaries.**_

**Chapter Six**

"Damon! What have you done?"

There was a crash followed by a loud and evil-sounding cackle, and then some pathetic whimpering. Sleep was obviously, once again, evading me, so I hopped up off of the comfy bed in search of a shirt. The one I was wearing was still too tight and it was getting dirty, which probably meant that I smelled bad. Oh, God… Damon always smelled immaculate….

Maybe he should make a perfume called, "Sexy Vampire Damon".

"Elena!" I reminded myself aloud. "Don't get attached. It would never last, anyway."

I told myself that I wasn't in too deep yet, and that the spell could be broken; I could just go back to my normal, everyday life and that would be that. No more drama and no more vampire issues. Even at that point, though, I wasn't _that_ delusional. It was too late.

I groaned as I realized that my right leg had fallen asleep as I listened intently, trying to figure out what was going on. I, with much difficulty, limped over to the other side of his room, determined to find the best smelling shirt that he had. His chest of drawers was a deep brown, obviously an antique and matching the room brilliantly. I heard a very strange and loud crashing sound from downstairs as I rifled through Damon's top drawer, marveling over all of the shirts that he had.

I jumped when someone started to yell out of the blue. "Hey! What's going on?"

Why did that voice sound so familiar? I searched the back of my brain until I came up with the answer, which you'd think would've been a little bit more obvious to me.

"Matt Honeycutt? What the hell?" Why the fuck would he be _here, _of all places? I was shocked that anything surprised me anymore.

Matt Honeycutt had been my boyfriend freshman year, and he had been the captain of the football team for our entire high school career. I didn't really go out with him because he was hot; he was kind of ugly, actually. I went out with him to spite Caroline Forbes.

Surprise.

He was average height, with muscle-builder muscles and short blonde hair. He had light blue eyes that were kind of dull and his facial features weren't very defined, making his face look somewhat babyish. He always wore this bitter smile as he walked through the hall, like he had been to Hell and was back again.

I knew why, of course: his mother had left him when he was a child, at only fourteen. She said that she was going to move onto bigger and better things, plastered as hell, and walked out the door with no intentions of ever returning. Every once in a while she would pop up and wreak havoc on Matt, making his already difficult life fifty times harder.

The only time I had ever seen Matt Honeycutt cry was the day his mother had left him for the fifth time; it was back in freshman year, and we had become good friends. I knew that Caroline was after him (I couldn't fathom why), so I took advantage of his vulnerability and snatched him up.

We went out for almost an entire year. Matt may not have been the most handsome guy in the entire world, but he had a kind heart, and he made me feel special when he talked to me. For the first time, I felt like a guy wanted me for my personality and not just my ass; it was a strange feeling, to say in the least.

For some reason, when I looked at him, I thought of my parents. I guess that was what made me change my mind.

_"No good relationship can last forever."_ Those were the words that I used when I broke up with him. I couldn't let someone so good become a permanent part of my life, because, like I said…. nothing, _nothing _good can last forever. Why not just speed up the process?

Anyway, Matt ended up going out with Caroline—oh, the irony—and we don't speak anymore. If we passed each other in the hallway, we would nod curtly and move on. We might have moved on, but we didn't forget…

I felt a pang of guilt as I thought over everything I had done and felt a single tear run down my cheek. I wiped it away angrily, telling myself that what was done was done and there was no changing it.

"_You _broke up with _him_, you idiot. _He _should be the one that's crying."

I _had _to stop talking to myself before someone called a shrink on me and made and appointment. I snapped back to the present, my angst momentarily forgotten as I heard weird things.

There were lots of noises; a door was opened and slammed shut, an out-of-control Bonnie was rattling the cage downstairs, and Stefan and Damon were yelling at each other.

I heard a low scream and then quiet, muffled sounds, and then the house was eerily silent. All of the sudden, that horrible shrieking from Bonnie again and I could hear her all the way from the two floors between us.

Last night, I had had nightmares about her episode. Sometime, Damon must have gotten tired of it because he comforted me for a little while by stroking the back of my hand. Cheesy or not, I was back asleep in no time and Damon was, too… as far as I know, anyway.

Shirt forgotten, I all but ran down the stairs in my favorite lacy bra, and I didn't even notice that my boobs were bouncing up and down and slapping me in the face… how embarrassing.

"Damon? What's going on?" My stomach growled at a most inappropriate time and I groaned in frustration, coming to a halt when I reached them.

Damon smiled cheekily at me and Stefan squealed before covering his eyes, and I looked down to see that my chest was staring right back at me, all but falling out of my bra in a very un-sexy way. I stared them down, mortified and waiting for one of them to say something, until I looked over and noticed that the closet door was bulging weirdly.

"Um… what's in the closet?"

"What's in that bra of yours?" Damon retorted, smiling like I had just given him a million dollars.

I scowled at him before Stefan gathered the courage to uncover his eyes and take a long look at me. "Damon, you've taken basic biology courses. You know that she has breasts, and there's no need to embarrass her about it."

I raised an eyebrow. What he had said was sweet, but I wasn't very impressed, because I was supposed to be the one to tell him off.

"I think I can tell him whether I'm embarrassed or not, thank you very much."

"Sorry." He started stuttering some stupid apology before I cut him off and made my way for the closet, only to be picked up by Damon. I had to admit it: it wasn't so bad, being trapped in his arms and being forced to stare at his delicious abs and chest.

Not so bad at all.

"Put me down, please."

He laughed cruelly and hoisted me over his shoulder, intent on not releasing me. I cringed as Bonnie's screaming continued, but neither one of them either batted one of their insanely long eyelashes. I'm not going to lie; I was _so _jealous of them.

"Isn't anyone else disturbed by Bonnie's… noises that she's making, down there?"

Stefan shrugged and turned to walk away. "No. I'll just go check on Matt and make sure he hasn't escaped—

"STEFAN!"

He winced and mouthed, 'sorry', before opening the door. Out came tumbling an overly large Matt, looking like he was wearing a hell of a lot of padding underneath his shirt and too-short shorts.

"Damn, Matt. I can see that you haven't laid off of those extra-large hotdogs that you used to buy…"

I clamped a hand over my mouth, shocked at myself, while Damon let out a loud and boisterous laugh and the two other guys rolled their eyes simultaneously. Great. On top of breaking his heart and sabotaging any chances he might have had with our relationship, I was calling him fat.

"Matt, I am so sorry…"

He rose up a hand to cut me off. "Yeah. Whatever."

I blinked. "So…."

He shrugged. "How have you been?"

He shrugged. "You know."

_No, I don't, you idiot. That's what I asked._

I nodded politely. "How's Caroline?"

The insufferable word-vomit I had just spit out sounded like I was choking on one of Matt's hotdogs.

He laughed. "_Right. _Because you like her so much."

I guess neither Caroline nor I had tried to keep our distaste for each other a secret, which made things even more awkward.

My head was still pounding from being upside down, and it wasn't helping that I could feel Damon's eyes on my ass as he lifted me up slightly higher.

"Damon, stop that."

He winked at me. "Stop what, dearest?"

"Don't call me 'dearest'. You wouldn't be holding me upside down if I was your 'dearest'."

"Sure, I would."

"Oh, yeah?"

It seemed that I was being even more defiant than ever, because I was putting an awful lot of trust into an unpredictable and seemingly evil vampire that was holding me upside down like I weighed two pounds.

"Elena?"

I rolled my eyes before turning my head back to Matt. "What?"

"I _am _still here, you know."

"Unfortunately, yes," I muttered under my breath. I didn't care that the vampires could hear it, as long as I didn't insult poor Mattie again.

"Yes, Matt. What can I do for you?"

He shifted awkwardly, obviously not thinking through his words before he said them. "… I don't know. Maybe… we could play checkers?"

I groaned; I was never good at that insipid and useless game that was designed for toddlers and old men. "Hell no."

"I see that you still swear, too."

Damon snorted. "An Elena without swearing? _That _would be an animal at the zoo that I would pay money to see."

"Damon!" Stefan cut in sharply. "Don't call Elena an animal."

I grinned. "Yeah, Damon; don't call me an animal. And _put me the hell down, _if you please."

"But I don't please."

I kicked at his head and heard him laugh again. His hair rustled as my foot came in tact with it, but the rest of him remained unscathed; as always.

"Don't laugh; it isn't funny. I want to be let down."

"And I want to play checkers!"

I was quickly losing what was left of my patience. "We're not playing checkers."

Damon's eyes started twinkling. "If you play checkers, I'll put you down."

I growled savagely at him from my meek position and tried to wiggle myself free; it was no use, because there was no escaping his iron grasp. I was losing my breath and my ribcage hurt from all of the rubbing that it was doing against things.

I couldn't take it any more. "Okay, okay. Fine!"

Matt smiled and ran into the living room, expecting me to follow him.

Immediately, I was back on the ground softly, and I didn't even feel my feet hit the ground. It was the oddest sensation; it was like I was flying to the ground, but I wasn't afraid at all, like I was a little fairy. I realized that this was the first time –but not the last -I had ever experienced the power of super speed.

"What just happened?" Obviously, my sluggish, human brain didn't move nearly as fast as my body had.

Damon nonchalantly crossed his arms across his chest and shrugged, wearing his Hallmark bored expression that you could recognize anywhere. "I put you down, just like you asked."

"But…. But…. one second I was in the air, and the next, I was on the ground!"

He rolled his eyes like he was explaining something to a five-year-old. "That's how super speed works, isn't it?"

I felt my defensiveness flair up right away. "Well, _Damon, _I wouldn't; I'm not a vampire, believe it or not."

He mockingly gasped and walked past me, into the living room, to do God knows what.

"Where are you going? You have to play, too!"

He merely shook his head. "It's funny; I don't remember that being part of the deal…"

I stomped my foot without even thinking about it, which actually really hurt; it wasn't like what you saw on TV, where the little bratty teenager stomps her foot and the whole world comes to a screeching halt.

I wasn't that fat.

"Damon, please?"

He pretended to consider for a minute. "Well… no. Have fun with hot dog boy."

Matt looked offended as he watched him go away, coming back into the main room and drag me to my doom…

**THREE HOURS LATER**

"No, Matt! No more."

We'd been at it for the last three hours and I was literally going to drop dead if I had to move another checker.

He pouted. Gross. "Please? Just _one _more game?"

I shook my head. "No. No. NO!"

His nostrils flared and I crinkled my nose. "Did your nostrils just flair?"

"They do that when I get angry."

As we'd been playing, Matt had slowly loosened up until he was almost like his old self. Basically, we talked about how _amazing _his relationship was with Caroline, which was boring me to tears. It hurt to feel like I had felt so many times… it was weird, knowing that he still cared about me, even after everything that had happened. I almost cried when he gave me his sweatshirt to wear.

I braced myself on my knees as I stood up and he started playing against himself (however it is that you go about doing that), and I strode to the kitchen in search of something edible.

The only thing I found was Stefan, and he was definitely _not _edible.

"Hey, Stephanie. I'm hungry."

He growled and smashed a mug into the counter top, looking like he wanted to murder me. I calmly stood there, patiently waiting for his fit to end.

"I think you should see a counselor about your… err…. anger, if you will."

"No, I will _not! _My name is Stefan."

"And you killed my father, prepare to die?"

He stared at me, confused, until I sighed. "Well, you've obviously never seen the _Princess Bride._"

"What do you want to eat?"

I turned around to see Damon looking at me inquisitively.

I scoffed. "_You're_ going to get me something to eat?"

"Duh. That's why I asked."

I shrugged. No point in judging his non-existent ethics. "Fine. I'll have a cheeseburger, with nothing but meat and cheese."

"No bun?"

I gritted my teeth. "No."

He smiled and left, enjoying getting on my nerves. I, however, was not enjoying it.

"Anyway, the _Princess Bride _is a classic. It's about this girl that falls in love with a boy, but then the boy is abducted by pirates, and then she falls in love with the pirate king, and this guy keeps repeating his name over and over again and says, 'prepare to die'… it's awesome."

His eyes were cold and disinterested as I babbled my heart away, obviously not caring about my motive behind my clever comeback.

"Awesome."

He walked away, quite bitchily, leaving me to scowl after him and impatiently wait for my cheeseburger.

I found myself in Damon's room again, rifling around his shirts and sniffing them carefully. As I put each one up to my nose, I said the first description that came to mind aloud:

"Floral. Cinnamon. Ewe… blood. Febreeze. Fresh rainfall. Pineapple."

"What the hell?"

I whipped around, the Pineapple shirt still attached to my sniffer, to find a very much bewildered Damon.

This. Is. Not. Good. "Um, I can totally explain this strange-looking mishap."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Well, my shirt was getting too tight and Matt gave me his, but he's huge now and his thing is too baggy on me, so I figured your sexy and trim body would be more appropriate for my petite body shape."

I slapped a hand over my mouth painfully while he grinned like the Cheshire cat as he watched my cheeks burn up.

"Shut up!"

He looked even _smugger_. "I didn't say anything. However, you gave me _quite _the interesting tidbit of information to nibble on."

What an un-Damon-like thing to say.

"Can we please just forget that I ever said anything?"

"No."

I groaned and closed my eyes, willing myself to materialize over to the other side of the planet. Nope. Didn't work.

"By all means; try on one of my shirts that fit my sexy and trim body so well."

"Who said anything about them fitting well?"

"Oh, so they don't?"

I smiled. "No. It bulges out your arm fat in all the wrong ways."

He chuckled. "I don't _have _any arm fat."

"Oh, really?"

He nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Well, then shake your arm and let's see if it jiggles."

I knew that his arm wasn't going to jiggle, but I still hoped in vain, nonetheless. His gloriously toned arm went up and down in the air, and nothing moved. At all.

Time for my poker face. "Oh, my God. Gross! Look at all of that flab, just hanging there, with no place to go besides your fatty ass."

I didn't know it was possible to glare arrogantly until he did so, but he made it happen, and it worked on him.

_Stupid Elena, _I chided myself. _EVERYTHING works on him._

"Just pick out a shirt so we can go."

"Where are we going?" Maybe I was being released from this prison and I was being taken home. Of course, I didn't actually _want _to go home…

"Oh, I think you know."

I stared at him strangely. "Um, why would I ask you if I already knew?"

He shrugged. "Karma's a bitch."

"That sentence didn't apply."

"Sure, it did."

"No, it didn't, you stupid fucking fortune cookie!"

He stormed out of the room, presumably so I could put on a shirt, and I decided to go with the Pineapple one.

I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed that my waist was getting just a little bit too small, which meant eating more for me. That was never a bad thing. My stomach was looking a little flat, so more sit-ups would be in order, and my arms were in dyer need of weights.

Figuring there was no time like the present, I started my exercises and worked vigorously, and by the time I was done I was ready for whatever Damon had planned.

Or so I thought.

I jogged down the steps and found Damon lounging against the doorframe, looking more bored than I had ever seen him.

"Ready."

"What _took _you so long? Did you decide to fly to England and then come back? We're going to be late!"

"You still haven't told me where we're going."

He opened his mouth to say something before I cut him off.

"No. Telling me that I already know in a cryptic voice doesn't mean that you've given me any vital information as to where we're going."

He rolled his eyes and dragged me out the door, evading my question, despite my pestering.

"Damon! I don't like surprises!"

He smirked. "Fear not, my princess of darkness; I can guarantee that you'll _hate _this one."

I struggled not to roll my eyes as he shared these words of comfort with me, pulling me faster, until he sighed in annoyance.

"Why do humans have to be so damned slow all the time?"

I shrugged, becoming used to his derogatory comments regarding my species. After all, what could I do?

"We can't all be speed racers."

He stopped and grinned maniacally into the night. Knowing that this was _never _a good thing, I turned to go to the other direction only to feel myself being hoisted into the air.

"Put me down!" I was getting tired of saying this to him… this was…. what? The tenth time today?

"No can do."

The next thing I knew, my legs were locked around his waist securely, my entire weight was resting on his back, and we were running faster than cars went in video games. I cringed as the wind whipped at my hair and irritated my eyes, burying my face into his shoulder and willing myself not to scream. In an odd way, it was kind of…. fun. Exhilarating, if you will.

I don't know how long it took us to get there; it couldn't have been more than ten minutes. I cautiously looked up with blurry eyes to see that we were in the middle of the woods, an unfamiliar territory to me. My knees were surprisingly sturdy as I slid off of him, expecting myself to fall, only to land on the ground uncharacteristically gracefully.

"Where _are _we?"

He smiled grimly. "We're here to visit an old friend."

"Wait… wasn't Matt the one at the door?" I had assumed that he would've been.

He chuckled. "Assumptions aren't going to get you anywhere with vampires. Just keep that in mind."

Well, I guess that _sort of _answered my question.

I someone's unnerving presence behind me as I turned around to see a small girl with dark hair and dark eyes, wearing all black and glaring.

"Damon."

"Anna."

"Who's she?" I asked stupidly.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm your brother's girlfriend."

I raised an eyebrow. She'd have to be a pretty hardcore bitch to go out with Jeremy the Stoner. "Are you, like… his druggy buddy?"

She looked offended. "I'm a vampire, you idiot. Drugs don't affect me. Hasn't Damon taught you anything?"

His eyes hardened. "This is all new to her; give her a break."

"Why's she even here?"

Figuring I wasn't exactly welcome, I decided to step out of the picture. "Maybe I should just go."

Damon shook his head and wrapped his hand around my wrist. "You're not going anywhere."

Anna looked _really _pissed, now. "Why not? She's just a useless human."

I scoffed at her and glared with all my might, but hers put mine to shame.

"I always thought you had more common sense than the others. How, exactly, is she supposed to find her way out of this place?"

"Ugh. I hate human disabilities."

What _was _it with these people? It wasn't like I asked them to carry me around all day long and answer all my questions about life.

"Well, I'm _so sorry_ that I can't be a perfect little vampire. It's not like I have a choice…"

"Sure you do." I shrieked as these ugly fang things came out of her mouth and she was in front of me in a flash, going for my throat. It was like something that you would see in a cheesy horror movie, except for that it was real.

"Anna!" Damon barked at her and tugged me behind him. "Not the fangs."

She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Do you have the book or not?"

"What book?" I liked reading; maybe I had a copy.

"No. I don't have it yet."

"Then why am I here?"

"Hey! I might have it. I love to read."

Anna looked at me like I was the stupidest idiot on the planet while Damon sighed impatiently.

"Elena, you don't have this book."

"How do you know? I like the classics."

Anna snorted. "Yeah, this book is a _real _classic. Just mind your own business, would you?"

"Your sneer is _most _unattractive."

I was almost surprised that she didn't kill me, the way her eyes flared. Evil.

I wasn't done yet. "What's the book called?"

He paused hesitantly. "Well… it doesn't exactly have a name, actually."

_"What. Is. It?"_

"It's a book of spells, alright?"

I guess they were offended because laughter wasn't appropriate at that particular time, but I did it anyway.

"Spells?" I stuttered out between deep breaths. "How fucking stupid do you think I am?"

"Don't answer that." To this day, I don't want to know what Anna's answer would have been.

"You know what? I'm leaving. Call me if I get the book."

She was gone in a blink before I could ask her any more questions, which was just as well.

"What the hell is going on?"

He sighed. "It's a long story, and it's not really mien to tell."

"Well, whose is it?" Patience wasn't my strongest suit.

"Your friend, Bonnie's."

He ignored my questions for the rest of the night as we went home, and I was determined to find out what was going on.

**AN: I'm sorry that this chapter is a couple thousand words shorter than usual. Life has been kicking me in the ass because I'm moving, which I'm incredibly excited about. Packing and stuff has been taking up all of my time, and, again, I'm so sorry that this is a week late. I know how it feels when my favorite stories don't get updated when they're supposed to… it's not awesome. I'm really hoping that I can have an update up by next Monday, but I can't be sure, so I'm sorry if I don't. I love you guys and thank you so much to everyone that's supported my story so far. Please take the time to review and I hope to hear from you guys soon!**

**Love,**

**Evie**


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: I am SO SORRY for not updating in, like, three weeks! I got my first writer's block and, as I stated in my last AN, I just moved an unpacking has been a real bitch. Unfortunately, this chapter is probably going to be shorter than usual… but, because I'm been keeping you guys waiting for so long, there's something **_**sexual **_**towards the end of the chapter for everyone to enjoy! I hope you guys love the chapter and sorry for this long assed AN (rambling is not one of my attractive features).**

**Disclaimer: Nothing I mention in this chapter or story—especially key themes, characters and places from the **_**Vampire Diaries**_**, belonging to L.J. Smith—belongs to me. **

**Chapter Seven**

"Could he have picked a more friendly girlfriend?"

I was referring to Jeremy's most recent flavor of the week (no pun intended), of course; I wondered whatever happened to Vicki Donavan. At least she was _human_.

He rolled his eyes and dragged me forward, causing an uncomfortable knot to form in my arm. I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to move faster, trying to get my arm to bend, and I felt sweat begin to form above my brow as we picked up speed.

"What is this; high intensity cardio class? What the fuck can't we just walk at a normal pace?"

He snorted but didn't comment on my use of profanity. "Only if you want it to be. I've been around for a long time; there's _lots _of things that I could show you…"

Oh, God. Not another sexual innuendo… I would spontaneously combust.

"Actually, I would like to walk at a normal pace." I didn't like how redundant I was becoming.

"We're not going at my 'normal pace'. We're going at the oh-so-desirable 'sluggish human' pace."

I ignored his jab at my species as he dragged us both onward, his impending sexiness being amplified by the moonlight. His pale features were more defined against his black hair and clothing and I closed my eyes, bidding myself not to have dirty thoughts.

Think about… grandma. Cookies. Puppies. Oh, wait; puppies can fuck, too. Damn it.

"What are you thinking about?" he suddenly asked me. What an interesting time to bring up that question…

"Why? Can you read minds?" In that _Twilight _book, there was this vampire that was like Stefan—a "vegetarian"—and he could read minds. Besides, if vampires were real, anything was real.

"No."

"Well, then why'd you ask?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "You do realize that if I could read minds, I wouldn't have to ask what you were thinking, right?"

Oh.

"Well… I was thinking about dirty things, and you've never asked before… so I just seemed like maybe you could…"

Damn it!

Too late now. "Ooh, dirty thoughts? Tell me more, please!" 

"Hell no. Maybe if you could read minds, you would know what I was thinking about."

He stared at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world before grinning again. Oh… that smile… too horny.

"So, you fantasize about me?" What normal, healthy girl wouldn't?

"No. I didn't say the thoughts were about _you._"

"Then what were they about?"

"I already told you; you're not going to find out. So stop asking."

"But now I'm curious!"

I needed to distract him. "How long until we get home?"

He smiled again before my error dawned on me.

"I mean; how long before we get to _your _home?"

He groaned. "You have the attention span of a toddler."

I secretly chuckled, because _he _was the one that had the attention span of a toddler.

"Whatever you say."

"We've got about ten minutes."

"Great." Actually, it _was _great, but I wasn't going to let him know that.

"Hey—

I made an unpleasant hissing noise like the dog whisperer to cut him off. "No. It's time to shut up. We are going to walk in complete silence for the rest of the way."

He huffed, annoyed, but complied to my wishes. I took the time we had to stare around me at my surroundings: the dark sky cast soft shadows, enhancing each individual leaf on the magnificent tree that was on my right. The grass was wet and smelled like honeydew, and the brown path we were walking on had stones and logs everywhere, sitting in casual disarray like they had been there for years.

Suddenly, I felt the overwhelming urge to say something that had been on my mind. It was more important than any competition, even if I had initiated it. I looked up at him cautiously, noting that he seemed to be in a good mood.

"Hey, Damon?"

"Ha! You talked first."

"I know." My voice sounded off, like there was something wrong. The nerves were taking over me and I wasn't even saying anything important. My fingers clenched around his and he somehow managed to feel it, even though it wasn't hurting him in the slightest.

He came to a halt and frowned at me, looking almost concerned. "What's wrong with you?"

"Oh, nothing." My throat sounded like something was stuck inside of it.

"Really?" Obviously, he wasn't convinced; I wasn't either, for the matter.

"Yeah. I just wanted to say…"

He waited for me to finish, but I didn't want to spit out the words for some reason. This was a big step for us. Showing any kind of emotion was strictly prohibited, and I was about to wear my heart on my sleeve for a minute.

It was terrifying and electrifying at the same time.

"Yes? You just wanted to say?"

I cleared my throat, which helped tremendously. "Um… thanks for, like, looking after me and everything. I know neither one of us either really express our feelings, but I appreciate that you took me into your home and helped me when I needed it. So, thanks."

He stared at me, dumbfounded, until he regained control over himself. "Um, you're welcome. Now, we should probably be going."

Something about Damon was different in that moment. He was still his regular, badass, sexy self, but there was something more vulnerable about him when I thanked him; it was like he was opening up to me. In his eyes, I could see something other than sarcasm and misery.

Overwhelmed by this, I threw my arms around him and buried my face into his chest. He was firm without being too hard, and warm, unlike the icy cold that you would expect from a vampire. His hands awkwardly slid around me and held me to him, silently thanking me. For what, I didn't know.

What I did know was that in those couple of minutes, when we just stood there, holding each other, something changed for the better.

**ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ**

It was late by the time we finally got home; that didn't mean that the party had stopped, though. Stefan was doing push-ups in the corner while Bonnie watched him, licking her lips nastily. His shirt was draped over the back of the couch and his flat, feminine-looking body seemed to be getting curvier by the second.

"Ewe."

Everyone looked at me as I let out that disgusted noise.

"Sorry. I meant, someone call the police, because this party is getting out of hand!" My fake enthusiasm went unappreciated; Stefan got up and began to button his shirt while Bonnie went back to her magazine, looking bored. Damon went over to the table behind the couch and poured himself a drink, staring at me with curiosity.

Bonnie casually slid her hand up and down Stefan's leg, going higher and higher until I finally let out an angry groan.

"For the love of God, stop acting like your little adventures you're having in the corner are some kind of forbidden secret!"

Damon still looked bored and uninterested as he stared us down, obviously not falling for the 'we-so-didn't-fuck' act.

You'd think the rest of them would have put the puzzle pieces together. "Damon; they totally fucked."

I even surprised myself at how blunt that was, and I'd said some pretty blunt things in the past. He drank his glass in one sip, downing it and not even looking phased as he slammed the cup down and poured some more.

"Duh."

I rolled my eyes as I turned to look at Stefan, who looked like a panicked deer in the headlights.

The only thing I was looking for was confirmation. "So, it's true, then? You screwed her?" For some reason, that made me really angry.

Bonnie still wasn't looking up from her magazine and Stefan looked hesitant.

"I don't see how that's any of your business, in all honesty."

Ouch. Nice comeback, Stephanie.

"Just answer the question and I won't bother you anymore."

"Yes, okay? We had sex. And it was really, really good!"

I rolled my eyes at Bonnie's sudden outburst. Nothing surprised me anymore, what with all of the secret meetings in the woods and near satanic seizure-things happening.

"Gross."

"Oh, please. It's not like you and Damon are virgins."

Damon removed his lips from the glass for half a second to answer. "That's true, you know."

"But we've never slept _together!_ And at least Damon's attractive. Look at Stephanie over there and tell me that he's hot…"

"Thanks, princess." That came from the elder, good-looking Salvatore.

"Hey!" That came from the… other Salvatore.

I grinned cheekily at Stefan as he huffed and puffed at me, growing angrier and angrier by the minute.

"Sorry, hon. I'm just stating the facts. "

Bonnie finally said something, at least. "You know what? Just because you got the better looking one doesn't mean that you got the better one!"

I stared at her blankly. "Um, yes it does."

"No. Stefan has quality and substance, and he's a gentleman. Damon…" She pointed over to my man (in my dreams) who was guzzling down beer like it was all going to magically disappear in the next five seconds.

"What are you getting at, exactly?"

"His exterior might be pretty, but his interior isn't!"

Stefan looked truly offended. "I'm starting to feel like the ugly Barbie doll that no one wants."

I laughed out loud while Bonnie tried to comfort him, and Damon smirked, pointing to the corner.

"Most toddlers throw the unwanted Barbie dolls in the corner when they don't want them, you know. And then they cut off all of their hair and brutally decapitate them before feeding the remainders of their poor, homely corpses to their puppies."

"I didn't mean to say that out loud," Stefan retorted in a quiet voice.

"No filter." I didn't really care if he heard or not; I still hadn't completely gotten used to the fact that vampires could hear anything from anywhere inside the house."

It was kind of unnerving.

"We will be together one day!" he yelled as he stormed out of the room.

Jesus. Was I going to have to drop a nuclear bomb on his head before he realized that we would never be together?

Bonnie glared at me hatefully. "You see? Look what you've done now!"

Damon chuckled. "I'm going upstairs now. You know where to find me."

"Thanks for your support, Dana."

"Do. Not. Call. Me. That."

I rolled my eyes in response and he was up the stairs before I could see him go.

My former best friend was seething as I sat down.

"I'm so tired of you getting all the good guys!"

"Oh, shut up. Just because Damon likes me and he hates you doesn't mean it's the end of the world. Besides, you've got your precious _Stefan_."

Her small eyes focused in on my forehead like it was a dartboard. "I hope one day you can realize how immature and stupid you are. Maybe then you'll appreciate me as a friend and you can beg for me to take you back."

My eyes rolled. "Yep. And then I'll eat dog food and crawl around on my knees all day, asking for permission to trim your toenails and to pee in the backyard."

She looked revolted. "You are such an idiot."

"Yep. I'm not in the math club." We had sworn that we'd never talk about her fourth grade math team again, but she was asking for it.

"Ugh! You're such an imbecile!"

"How many ways can you reiterate the fact that you think I'm stupid?" 

"Many. You're ugly and boring, too."

Who was this bitch and where did innocent little Bonnie go? Her eyes were doing that weird thing where she flared up and got angry, and then she'd start shaking.

"Elena Gilbert, I hate you! Go die in a fucking hole! Moron."

I huffed at got up, intent on bothering someone else. Looking back as I excited the room, I knew whoever that was that was sitting on the couch wasn't Bonnie. Not the Bonnie I knew, anyway.

I found myself outside of Stefan's room, rapping on the door extra loudly because I knew it would bother him. The door swung open and he glared at me.

_"What?"  
_

"I'm bored."

"So?"

"Can I come in?" 

His gentlemanly instincts kicked in before he could stop them and he stepped aside, holding the door for me and gesturing with his hand that I should enter. As I looked around his room, I noted that it much resembled his personality: dry and boring, with no originality. There were little antiques littered throughout the room, obviously collected as time continued on, being left to stay here for all eternity.

"This room is… nice."

"Thank you. I designed it myself."

Duh.

"That's impressive." I didn't know why I was being nice to him; maybe it was because I was so desperate not to be bored, or maybe it was because I was exhausted beyond belief.

"You know, you should really consider making up with Bonnie."

I scoffed. "Excuse me? Have you _seen _the way she's been treating me?"

"Have you seen the way you've been treating her?"

I shrugged. "But I'm never nice. She usually is, so it makes a big difference."

"Why does it make a big difference? You should always be a good friend, no matter what. Family may always be at your side, but you can't tell them everything like you can to a true friend."

"What is this? An old re-run of _Full House_? "

He rolled his eyes. "I just wanted you to know that I think you two should make up. And…"

"What?" I knew I would be stuck in here all day if I didn't listen to what he had to say.

He hesitated before speaking in a huge hurry. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm always here, no matter what happens. You can tell me anything and I won't judge you."

Despite my better judgment, I could feel myself smiling. "Okay. Good to know. Although I'm sure I'll never take you up on that."

I still didn't know that I wanted to talk to Bonnie, but I figured that it would get him to leave me alone. It was funny, how I could go from wanting to bother him to trying to get him to stop bothering me in a matter of seconds.

I waved and left his room and he followed me, stopping in the kitchen while I went all the way back into the living room. Bonnie sat there with that creepy, blank expression that she got after she'd start shaking and screaming… but this time, I didn't hear any screaming.

"Bonnie?"

Her eyes flickered up to me. "What?"

Her voice was raw and depressed. "I just wanted to say that I was sorry."

She laughed bitterly. "For what? Leaving me to survive senior year alone or completely ignoring me when I got here, which was when I needed you the most?"

I scoffed. "Come on, Bonnie; that's hardly fair. You told me you didn't want to be friends anymore, so I stopped being your friend. _I _am the one that's been needing the support lately. All you do is sit around and scream all day long."

She scowled. "Is that really what you think I do?"

"Well… yeah." What else would she be doing?

She sighed in annoyance. "Let's start listing mythical creatures, shall we?"

"Um… no?" Why was she listing mythical creatures? We weren't sixth graders that were getting ready to dress up for Halloween.

She shook her had angrily. "You know what? I try to help you and the only thing you do is throw it back in my face. Go burn in hell, you fucking bitch!"

"Jesus. PMS, much?" I muttered to myself.

I heard a door slam from the basement and heard screaming, which was what really pushed me over the edge. I let out a mighty scream of my own and ran up the stairs, barging in on Damon who was standing in front of the mirror, observing himself. I struggled not to drool as I saw his killer abs, his black shirt unbuttoned.

"I'm so fucking tired of Bonnie!"

He smiled sarcastically. "Why?"

"As if you don't know."

He sexily strolled over to me, placing his hands on my shoulders and pushing my down to a sitting position on the bed as he massaged my shoulders, looking much taller than he actually was when he was standing above me.

His long, strong fingers gently relaxed my body as they worked, calming me down. My breathing intensified as I stared at his stomach, flat with just enough muscle, inches from my face. I could have reached out with my tongue and licked it…

He seemed at peace (well, as at peace as Damon could be) as he continued this, occasionally looking down from under his thick, black lashes. I could feel arousal piling up inside of me, waiting to explode as it literally set my body on fire. He finally set me over the edge when he looked at me for a final time, not looking innocent but not looking too dirty, either.

I shoved myself upward so that our bodies were as close as they could possibly be and grabbed hold of his soft and silky hair, smashing our lips together. He responded almost instantly, his mouth tasting like chocolate and honey and all sorts of other sexy things. I hitched my leg around his hip and his tongue slowly explored my mouth, dancing with mine as my fingers remained locked in his hair.

However, my hands soon abandoned their semi-innocent position as I felt his thumbs sweep over my breasts. I ripped his shirt from his shoulders and he unbuttoned mine at super speed, his hands now freely groping at me through my lacy bra. My hands traveled over his sculpted chest down to his stomach making their way back and forth until they settled around his back.

His hands were soft and slightly rough as they tore apart my bra and I gasped as he kissed and sucked at my left breast, licking in all of the right spots and using his hand to shower the other one with attention. I felt like I should be doing something, like trying to take his pants off, as he slowly kissed his way down my stomach, but he didn't seem to mind. He skipped right over the area I _wanted _him to lick and pulled down my jeans, smirking at me with his eyes and kissing around my ankles.

I tried to remove his belt, but his hands merely pushed mine away. His lips were now brushing against my mid-thigh and my legs were starting to shake. I wasn't sure how much more of this I could take, but then again, I had never fucked a vampire before, either.

All of the other times I'd done this, I'd always been the one in charge; this was a completely different element for me. I didn't even mind that I was letting him take over my entire body because it felt good, which was the only thing that really mattered to me in that moment.

Finally, I knew I wasn't going to have to wait much longer when his long fingers slipped inside of my underwear and gently caressed me, causing me to groan like I was possessed. My hips automatically lifted up and he chuckled, withdrawing his hands and pulling my thoroughly soaked panties down with them.

I stared down at myself consciously; no doubt he had seen women ten thousand more times beautiful than me. He smiled reassuringly from the point of my leg he was casually resting his leg on. I shuddered as his fingers danced up and down my leg, up and down, up and down.

"Stop that!"

He laughed again. "Patience, princess."

I somehow managed to wait patiently, because after what felt like hours, his fingers were finally _there_, but then…

"What the hell is going on in here?"

I screamed and searched for a sheet to cover myself with, eventually settling for Damon. He made sure I was fully shielded from Stephanie's perverted eyes before turning to glare at him.

"Excuse us, Stefan, but we were actually in the middle of… activities, if you will."

_Activities _will never be the same word to me.

Stefan raised an eyebrow. "Well, I just made Elena some homemade chicken noodle soup, but you're obviously busy."

"Obviously." Shut up, Damon; you may be the eternal stud that I'd wanted to fuck since the day I first saw you, but there was no way I was turning down chicken noodle soup.

"Wait, Stefan!" I called. He ignored me and went back down the stairs, taking the delicious-smelling soup with him.

In a way, I felt bad about what I'd done… even though I hadn't actually done anything.

I sighed and looked back down at Damon, who was placing his entire palm against my stomach and rested his head against my chest, lying on top of me and holding his weight on his other hand that was braced against the mattress.

"Want to go find Stefan?" He sighed, resigned, as if he already knew the answer.

I beamed down at him and hopped up from the bed, feeling blood run to my cheeks as he stared me down. "Don't look!"

He smirked. "Why not, princess? You look pretty damned good to me."

I know some girls would consider that almost borderline derogatory, but they didn't have Damon. Coming from him, I knew that he actually _meant _it, which was a huge confidence booster to me. Despite my tough exterior, I still had my moments of self-doubt.

"Thanks. Now look away."

I slide my clothes back on, disgruntled, because running around the house naked would have been _much _more comfortable. He lay back on the bed, his shirt still off, which gave me the perfect chance to stare him down without looking like a total perv.

He caught me and waved me off. "I'll be here if you need me."

I don't know if I was supposed to or not, but I took that as a general rule. Damon would look out for me.

I walked out of the room feeling like I was literally going to burst, but at the same time I was on cloud nine, just for the sheer fact that I almost had sex with Damon. I kept stumbling on stuff as I made my way down the stairs and actually fell when I tripped over one of Stefan's shoes, but barely felt the impact of the fall.

In the kitchen, there was a bowl of soup with a card next to it. It said: _To Elena, my one true love._

I rolled my eyes and through the piece of the paper on the floor before eating the soup, which was one of the most delicious things I'd ever tasted. The hot liquid felt good on my dry throat and I quickly finished it all, noticing that my nose was all runny and I was resisting the urge to cough.

I groaned as I realized that I was coming down with a cold, which could be problematic.

Actually… I take that back. It could be a good thing. For now, though, I just needed to concentrate on _not _killing Bonnie and breaking up Jeremy and his psychotic bitch of a girlfriend.

At least I knew that Damon would be there for me.

**AN: Again, I am so sorry about not updating in, like, three weeks! I know that a lot of authors update even less frequently than that and their chapters are a lot shorter, but still, I feel awful, because I'm been addicted to writing ff for years (although I haven't posting for too long). I'm finally settled into my new house, like I said, so I'll have a lot more time to write.**

**I love you guys so much and want to thank you for any kind of feedback that you give me. Reviews mean the world to me—even if they're telling me that my story sucks and I should go die in a hole—, so thank you to those of you who take the time to do it. Feel free to review… they make my day and motivate me to write faster!**

**I can almost guarantee that a new chapter will be up next Monday.**

**Until then… Love, Evie**


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to review! Enjoy the chapter! **

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Vampire Diaries **_**or anything else that I mention in this story.**

**Chapter Eight**

Several weeks had passed since the…incident, if you will.

You know. The part where I was stupid enough to give up having sex with Damon for chicken noodle soup.

For an update on the Salvatore house: Damon keeps hitting on me and it gets harder and harder everyday to tell him no. I don't understand my logic for not fucking him, but there's just something telling me not to. Stefan refuses to talk to Damon, which Damon just finds hilarious. Stefan is still delusional and thinks that we're going to get married and have mutant vampire babies one day, which under _no circumstances _will be happening. Bonnie… well, she's a bitch.

I looked up from the old journal I had found in the attic as Stefan walked in the room, his smile looking like a grimace.

"How are you, Elena?"

"Good…" Even though he'd been angry with me when he'd walked in on us, after that he'd gone back to his typical, boring self.

He sat down at the table opposite from me while I got up and walked over to the cabinets above the counter, rummaging through them until I found what I was looking for: Pop Tarts. They may not be nutritious, but they most definitely delicious.

How did we acquire all of these food items, might you ask? Stefan took it upon himself to go to the grocery store with me in tow and buy everything in sight, throwing it all into the cart until there wasn't any more room. (Review: Review if you want Stefan to buy your groceries! What did you think of the chapter?)

The best part was that he didn't know what any of it was.

"Did you sleep well?" I slid my Pop tarts into the toaster and sat down across from him again, smiling to myself.

All right, so maybe I _sleep _with Damon. But only in the literal sense that we're sleeping in bed, together, and not having sex. It sure as hell was more comfortable than my tiny old bed back at home, and warmer, too.

I resisted the urge to smile tauntingly at him. "Yes, thank you. And yourself?"

He shrugged. "As well as I can during the night."

I raised my eyebrow, confused.

"Well, vampires are traditionally nocturnal creatures. It's our instinct to go to bed at dawn and wake up at midnight."

Hmm. Damon never seemed to have any trouble getting to sleep…

"Why doesn't Damon have troubles sleeping at night?"

He rolled his eyes, obviously aware that we were sharing a bed. "Why don't you ask him? I would assume it's because he's always been more social than me, so he had to wake up during the day."

Damon? More social than him? What the fuck?

"Um, he doesn't exactly strike me as a _social _type of guy."

He snorted again. "Shows how much you know. Damon has a lot of friends… before he either backstabs or kills them. I use the word 'friends' loosely, of course."

"Of course."

"Anyway, back before we become monsters, Damon was actually a _nice _person. Still irresponsible, rude and arrogant, but he had a good heart. Then everything changed."

If there was one thing I had learned in life, it was that the two words 'Damon' and 'life' did not go together.

"Whatever, Stefan. You don't have to tell me the truth, but you don't have to lie to me."

He started to protest, but then he got a confused look on his face. "Wait… oxymoron?"

I rolled my eyes. "No. Just moron."

I grabbed my Pop tarts from the toaster and stalked out of the room, done with this boring conversation. I ran right into Bonnie and crumbs went flying everywhere, causing her to laugh as I mourned over my lost breakfast.

"It's no wonder you're so fat. Do you have any idea how many calories are in one of those things?"

"Not as many as there are up your ass!" I didn't care that my insult made no sense.

She huffed and stomped on my hand with her high heel, causing me to squeal in pain.

"Ouch! What the hell?"

She shrugged. "Just getting out all of those extra calories that are lying around in my ass."

I cradled my hand to my chest, noting that it was bleeding lightly and walked upstairs quickly before Stefan could go predator on me again. I found myself in Damon's room without even thinking about it, grabbing one of my spare shirts that he had brought over for me from the old house.

So far, Aunt Jenna had made no move to try to find me, which worked just as well. I saw Jeremy crossing the street the other day and he flipped me off when I waved at him, so he obviously wasn't going to rat me out. I can't honestly say that I missed them, because I'd been too preoccupied to think about my old life.

"What did you do to your hand?"

Damon's voice floating from behind me snapped me out of my reverie, startling me. He placed a hand on my shoulder and gingerly took my hand, examining it.

"Bonnie stomped on it with her bitch boot heel when I told her that she was looking fat."

"Isn't there some rule about calling girls fat?"

I rolled my eyes. "That only applies to guys, Damon."

"Whatever. Let's get you some ice."

He grabbed me by my elbow down the stairs and sat me on top of the counter, earning me a venomous glare from Bonnie. I smiled back cheekily before wincing in pain, my hand throbbing full-force after a few second's break.

"Bonnie? Is it true that you did this?"

Stefan sat there, looking like the same confused and brooding idiot that he always did, as Bonnie nodded.

"So what?"

"Come with me, please."

"No."

This could get ugly.

"Bonnie, I'll crumbled twenty five more pop tarts all over your pillow and stuff them in your bra tonight if you don't get the hell out of this room right now!"

She stood up, mumbling something about shipping me off to some secluded island in the middle of nowhere, and sulked behind Damon. As soon as I heard the front door shut, I allowed my suspicions to drop and made myself another pop tart.

Stefan looked appalled. "Didn't you already eat one of those?"

I will _so _slap you, sister. "No. I crumbled it into Bonnie's lap."

"Oh." He shoved his face back into his newspaper and muttered something about politics.

"Can't any of you speak like normal people?"

"And by normal people, you mean…"

"So I can actually HEAR you?" I yelled just for effect and he winced, covering his ear.

"Well, Damon and I are adapted to speaking inaudibly, so I'm going to go with 'no'."

"That's unfortunate, then, isn't it?"

He shrugged. "Only to you."

I plucked my shoe off my foot and chucked it at him as hard as I could. Of course, he stuck his hand out and caught it without even looking up from his newspaper.

"Bitch ass motherfucker!"

"Elena!" he scolded me. "Language!"

I rolled my eyes. "Right. Because I'm an oldie and I live in the nineteenth century."

His face remained smooth and unoffended by my crack at his age as I grabbed my pop tarts and sat across from him, much from how I left him earlier that morning.

"So…" Well, wasn't I Miss Chatty Cathy that day?

"So, what?"

"Um… dogs or cats?"

He laughed without humor. "Cats."

"Is there some private joke that I'm missing out on?"

"Um, duh?"

"Well, look who learned a modern term!"

"That's not really a modern term, Elena."

"These people can be very difficult to work with," I muttered to myself as I left the room. Bonnie came back into the house with a scowl and Damon followed her, looking equally as happy.

"Bonnie."

She ignored me and stomped down the stairs.

I turned to Damon. "Does she live down there?"

He shrugged. "Ask Stephanie."

He shoved past me and stalked down the hallway, brooding even _more _sexily than usual.

"Stephanie?"

I heard a chair slam against the wall. "I don't know anyone that goes by that name."

"I do."

"Goodnight, Elena."

"But, it's morning!" I began to protest.

He gave me the hand without even looking back. Bitch.

I meandered around the house for a while and found, remarkably enough, nothing. It was like all of this vast space was just sitting there, nothing to fill it with, waiting for someone to come along and put a big piece of furniture there that would take up the entire house.

"Damon?" I called out.

For once—the one time I actually _wanted_ him to—he didn't appear behind me. Instead I received an unfriendly sounding, 'what' from the room he had mysteriously disappeared into.

"Can I be your interior decorator?"

"No."

Damn. He must have been in a _really _bad mood.

"Fine. I'll just find something else to do." I was beginning to think that I had a problem, the way I kept talking to myself over and over again.

And so around and around the house I went, in search for some kind of entertainment, all to no avail.

"Elena!" Bonnie yelled at me sharply when I passed by the door to the basement for the seventeenth time. Not that I was counting…

"What, bitch?" If she was going to be hostile, then I was entitled to be as well.

"You haven't forgotten about tonight, have you?"

I racked the back of my brain for what could be happening tonight, but nothing came up. "No…"

"It's the carnival, you idiot!"

Oh, no… I groaned in horror as I finally remembered that tonight was, in fact, Mystic Falls High School Carnival, the most hyped up event of the entire year. _Everyone _went, whether they went to the school or not, as long as they were in high school. It was strange to think that I fit into that category now.

"Well, have fun." There was no way in hell I was going to go back there to face all of my peers again. Besides, Jeremy was sure to be there. Ugh…

"Oh, you're going. We all are."

I raised my eyebrow at her. "I hate to break it to you, but you and Stefan are the only two people that actually go there."

She rolled her eyes. "You know how it works; as long as you're a teenager, you get in."

"But…" Come on, Elena, come up with a legitimate excuse. "Damon can't really pass for a teenager. I can't just leave him here all alone!"

"Why the hell not? He's, like, a hundred years older than us!"

I rolled my eyes. "So much for the vampire secret."

I thought back to the other night and figured there was no time like the present.

"Hey, Bonnie?"

"_What_?"

"The other night, Damon and I were out and about and we ran into this other vampire that's dating my brother. They were talking about something stupid, like a book of spells, and Damon said you have a story to tell me. So…"

She raised her eyebrow. "You still haven't figured it out?"

I shook my head.

She made a disgusted noise from the back of her throat and pointed to the living room, sitting down on the couch. "Humans can be such idiots sometimes."

"You're insulting yourself, you know."

She chuckled evilly. "No, I'm not."

Oh, no. No more vampires.

"Please tell me you're not a vampire." If my ex-best friend turned out to be a vampire I would lose it, for real.

"I'm not a vampire."

I breathed deeply in relief. "Thank God…"

"I'm a witch."

Oh, because that's _so _much better.

"Witch?"

She shrugged. "Yeah. You know… hocus pocus, and Mickey Mouse, and that kind of stuff. Except for that I do actual spells."

Well, at least her dietary habits weren't going to affect the eco system.

"That's cool, I guess." I probably should have been miffed that she didn't tell me sooner, but I had too many secrets to worry about to care about such an irrelevant little detail.

She seemed almost animated, reminding me of how she _used _to be. "I know, right?"

All of the sudden her face fell. "But then you left me, right when I needed you most."

I stared at her sadly. "Bonnie! I didn't leave you. Aunt Jenna's the one that took me out, remember?"

"I know. But I needed you there with me. Every time I looked over, expecting you to just magically reappear, you just… wouldn't."

I could feel my heart wrench, which was really pathetic, after everything that she'd done to me. I couldn't help but think back to the years of when we were kids and would play all day long, get into all sorts of trouble, and then blame it on Jeremy. That was back when he would actually _talk _to me.

"Elena?"

Despite my irritation at myself, I could feel tears pooling in my eyes. "What?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, for all of the stuff that I've said to you in the past. It was uncalled for and it wasn't true, either. I…. I miss you."

The tears fell down my cheeks as I gave her a watery smile. "Thanks. I've missed you, too. It hasn't been the same without you."

She gave me a light hug with one arm and I knew that while things would never, ever be the same, things were going to get better between us.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up and talking about a bunch of random stuff that didn't have to do with anything. At some point she had used my weakness to her advantage and convinced me to take Damon to the carnival, because she and Stefan were going as a couple.

I raised an eyebrow. "You and Stefan are dating? I want all of the details!"

I thought back to when we had just started our senior year and she had an enormous crush on him and smiled, knowing that she would at least be happy with him.

She blushed, almost completely back to her old self. "Well, I don't know if we're 'dating'. We're definitely 'together', though."

She sighed and rested her head on my knee. "I'm so glad I told you about my secret. I feel so relieved!"

She hopped up and down on the couch, giggling like a maniac and reminding me of when we were fourteen and would read tween magazines during sleepovers. Maybe now we could do spells….

"Hey, Bonnie? What kid of spells do you know?"

She shrugged. "I don't really know that many yet. It takes a long time to get them all down and I've only just begun."

"What spell book do you think Damon was talking about?"

"I don't know; there's thousands of them." That narrows it down.

I frowned, dismayed. Remember when I told you I was nosy? I kind of under exaggerated on that.

"We'll figure it out later."

"You'll figure what out later?"

Bonnie blushed again when she saw Stefan standing in front of us. "Oh, nothing. Let's get ready. See you later, Elena."

"Wait!"

They rudely ignored me, prancing out the door and slamming it behind them, not a care in the world about what I could have to say. I sprinted after them and barely caught them in time.

"Where are you going?" BTW (that means, 'by the way'), my wheezing as I spoke like an old lady was most attractive.

"We volunteered to help set up," Stefan offered as he opened and shut her door for her.

I grinned. "Well, Stephanie, aren't you miss goody two-shoes?"

If he weren't such a gentleman, I bet he would've punched me in the face. I waved goodbye as he drove off, glaring at me through the rear-view mirror. I growled under my breath at the thought of facing off with angry Damon.

"Damon!" I yelled as I entered the house. "We're going to the carnival."

"No!"

He was before me in a matter of seconds, scowling. "Damn it. You were stupid enough to fall for it?"

"To fall for _what_?"

"What did you think Bonnie and I were arguing about earlier? I was fighting for our right to stay here—_alone_." His hands went to my shoulders again, lightly squeezing and going towards my chest.

Oh, God… so hot…

I had to muster up my most-lust free and even voice that I could manage in that moment. "Too late now."

His glare didn't really affect me because I saw it so often. "What if we just don't show up?"

"As mildly tempting as that sounds, Bonnie and I are starting to rekindle our relationship."

He rolled his eyes. "Who are you dating—me or Bonnie?"

I stared at him, wide-eyed, as he waited impatiently.

"Well?"

"Um, I wouldn't really call either one of you my boyfriend."

He groaned. "Don't you dare deny it, Elena. I know you feel something."

Duh. "Well, of course I do! That doesn't just mean that I can act on my first impulse! Besides, I don't even know that much about you."

"What more do you need to know than you already do? You know the basics: I'm an arrogant, rude, mean, manipulative, compulsive, and insanely handsome eternal stud." He summed his entire character up very matter-of-factly, surprising me.

"With a sweet side," I added, just to see what he'd say.

"_No. _With an even darker side."

"I don't think that's possible."

He smiled sexily. "Oh, you're just beginning to learn the basics of immortality, my princess of darkness."

He stepped forward, closer to me, as he said that, like a lion coming in for its kill. I stepped back out of reaction and he followed me until we reached the wall, him pinning my hands above my head.

His lips somehow managed to find my neck and lightly kissed it, up and down, driving me insane. His fangs lightly grazed my skin, but it didn't hurt like I thought it would; it was actually a huge turn on. I hoped I wasn't turning into one of those pain-equals-pleasure typed freaks.

His mouth was thoroughly exploring my jaw line, kissing every bit of skin that it could reach, while I stared up at the ceiling and begged myself to find the willpower to tell him to stop.

At this point, I didn't even know _why _I would want him to stop.

Just before I could say anything, his lips covered mine and his tongue shoved into my mouth, causing me to gasp and brace myself against him for support. I found myself unconsciously grinding against him in a most inappropriate way, both relieving myself and setting my body on fire at the same time. My fingers tangled into his dark hair and my leg hitched around his waist, pulling him as close as I possibly could.

His mouth tasted the same way it always did: sweet and spicy. His cool breath was the only thing that was keeping me from passing out as his tongue went in and out, and in and out, and in and out.

Right before I was about to get into doing things that I would have _really _regretted, the phone rang from the living room at the same time his lips started traveling down my neck and towards my chest. I jumped as the shrill noise made contact with my ears.

He growled savagely, pulling me tighter, like I was his pray. Not that I had a problem with that…

"Damon," I panted out, "go get the phone."

My voice was raspy and low, unlike my typical one. Who knew that I had a sex voice, after all? I'd never actually used it when I fucked other people.

He more or less ignored me as his tight arms continued to constrict me. And so I started to struggle, just a little bit, just to get him out of his phase that he was in.

"Go get the phone."

His grip lessened, but he still didn't let go.

"I'll still be here when you get back."

I guess that must have been enough for him, because he let me go and was out of the room, the high ringing noise finally ending as he snapped at some unlucky person. I put a hand over my heart and tried to catch my breath, sounding like I had just won a marathon, and made my way over to the couch.

He was back in less than a minute, looking confused. "You want to do it on the couch?"

I shook my head. "No. I need to go get ready for the carnival."

He groaned loudly and shook his hands through his hair. "_Why do we have to go_? We were on a roll! Why do we have to stop the fun?"

I ignored his whining. "Who was that on the phone?"

He rolled his eyes angrily. "Stephanie. He's bitching about the fact that we're going to be late if we don't hurry."

"Wait… _what?_ We can't be late!"

"Should I even bother asking why not again?"

I cringed as I got up, having grown used to him supporting all of my weight, and ran to the bathroom. Basically, I looked like I had just had sex; which wasn't too far off.

"Come on. We have to go right now!"

He glowered at me for about fifteen seconds before pulling the car keys out of his back pocket and pointing towards the front door, causing me to smile. I ran as fast as I could, causing him to chuckle.

"Is that all you've got?"

"Hey! This isn't that bad for a human!" 

He was by my side in a flash. "Yeah, but it is for a vampire!"

He picked me up again and through me over his shoulders, supporting me like I was a toddler on top of her father.

"Damon! Put me the hell down! NOW!"

"I don't think so."

I clenched my eyes shut and enjoyed the breeze on my face as we zipped to the side of the house where the car was parked. He gently placed me in his little convertible and shut my door, already bucked in by the time I reached for my seat belt.

"Do you mind? I like to actually see where you are, you know."

"Why? Is it because you can't get enough of my sexy, trim body?"

He was never going to let that go, was he?

"Oh, get over it, Damon!"

We argued all the way there, about every thing from whether or not he was fat to what radio station to listen to. He turned it to some stupid Oldies station and he couldn't bring himself to appreciate my pop, so we opted for heavy metal. For some reason that solved the issue.

By the time we got there, pretty much everyone was in the middle of some kind of activity. I took it upon myself to go get a fortune cookie from the booth that said, _Free Fortune Cookies _on it, both promoting health and social activity.

"One fortune cookie, please."

The man that was standing behind the counter looked at me up and down and sniffed, pulling a fortune cookie out of his little box.

"Did you sniff me?"

He looked at me like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "No. I sniffed your _aura_."

He shoved the cookie in my hand, using it to crumble. "That will be one cent, please."

"But your sign says that it's free."

"My sign lies."

"If I have to pay for this thing, I want one that isn't all smashed up."

He shook his head. "No! You got your fortune cookie, now give me the penny!"

"Jesus. Talk about pushy salesmanship."

I rolled my eyes as he hissed something along the lines of 'go die in a hole' at me and found Damon harassing Jeremy and Anna over in the corner of the field the event was taking place in, having paid for my useless fortune cookie.

"Damon!"

He waved at me and gestured to come over while Jeremy stalked away, Anna close behind.

"What was that all about?"

He shrugged. "Just a bunch of bitches; can't have a carnival without them."

"True."

I opened my fortune cookie and the little slit of paper fell into my palm. It read: _If you truly love someone, you will always go to them_.

I scoffed. "What a useless piece of garbage."

He took it from me and had the same reaction I did, shoving it inside his pocket.

We meandered around for a little while, not really enjoying any of the festivities that it had to offer. We could have had much better ones at home.

Finally, he gave me a nudge and pointed at the massive Ferris wheel.

"Maybe we'll get lucky and we'll be stuck on top!"

I looked at him like he was insane but followed him nonetheless. As we slowly made our way up into the sky, I rolled my eyes as he snuck his arm around me, shaking our seat on purpose.

"Stop that!"

"Why? It makes it more fun."

"No, it doesn't. We're not all undead."

"Just you wait and see."

"I'll hold you to that."

"I wouldn't."

Good point, Damon. Good point.

Because karma is an evil bitch, we ended up getting stuck on top, just as _someone _predicted.

"Well, would you look at this?"

Of course, he was carefree, not at all worried that we were several feet above the ground and he was shaking us back and forth.

"Hey, look! It's Bonnie and Stefan!" he said, pointing in his direction. As my head whipped around to see what his unexpected enthusiasm was all about, he grabbed hold of my jaw and lightly kissed me on the lips.

This kiss was different. It didn't last more than a few seconds, but it was better than all of the other ones we'd had; it was sweet and tender, like he was kissing me for reasons other than lust. It was like he actually cared.

He pulled away after a few seconds, gingerly releasing me as to not send me flying down to the ground, and looked away as I felt a smile start to play on my lips.

"What was that for?"

His eyes found mine and I saw nothing but sincerity. "Nothing. I just wanted to kiss you."

"Okay." That was most definitely fine with me.

ABDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful.

We got home, Bonnie and Stefan following behind us, and we all stayed up to talk for a little while. Even though there was still a trace of hostility in the air between the two brothers, they were considerably nicer than usual to each other.

As we bid each other goodnight, the subject came up that Bonnie and Stefan would be returning to school tomorrow—that had had a break because of the preparation for a carnival. That meant that Damon and I would have the house all to ourselves, and it also meant that we could get into all sorts of naughty trouble…

"Goodnight, Bonnie." It felt nice to be able to say that without a trace of hate in my voice.

She hit me on the back as she walked back towards the basement, where I presumed that she slept. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Stefan." He had a weird twitch in his eye, like he was in on something that I wasn't, as he bid me good evening.

"Good night, Damon."

He nodded as he poured himself a drink. "I'll be up in just a minute."

I was half way up the stairs before I trotted back down to the point where I could see him again. "Oh, and Damon?"

He raised his eyebrow at me, as his mouth was full.

"I would most definitely consider you my boyfriend."

And for the first time ever, I actually got a genuine smile out of Damon Salvatore.

**AN: What's up with everyone being so **_**nice**_**? Hopefully they'll all be back to their bitchy selves by next chapter, because that's what makes them so entertaining. ;) A lot happened in this chapter, whether you guys know it yet or not.**

**Please, please leave me a review. I would really and sincerely appreciate it and thank you so much to everyone who has done so thus far in the story. I love you guys! (PS: The more reviews I get, the more likely I am to write a lemon. Damon and Elena have an **_**awful **_**lot of spare time together… just saying.)**

**Thanks so much for reading! New update on Monday. Take care, everyone! **

**Love,**

**Evie**


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Here's the deal: this chapter is going to be very different from all of the other ones so far. This time, we're going to get other POV's besides just Elena's. I'll tell you why after the chapter. Please make sure to read the AN at the bottom after this. I hope you like it!**

**Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to review. I love you all! Enjoy the chapter! **

**Chapter Nine**

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**the Vampire Diaries **_**or anything else that I mention in this story.**

**Elena's (As usual) POV**

I woke up the next morning, feeling something heavy draped across my waist. I gazed down groggily, rubbing my eyes while doing so, to find Damon's arm wrapped securely around me. I realized that this was the first time I had ever seen him sleep and immediately became transfixed, studying him intently.

His dark hair was artfully swept across his chiseled face like he'd been styling it for hours, lightly tousled and creating shadows on his flawless face. His way-too-long eyelashes rested peacefully on his cheeks, his lips puckering adorably as he breathed in and our deeply.

Even in his sleep, he looked completely and irrevocably diabolical.

Last night had been a big step for me, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was the right time to say something. The feelings that I had been harboring for weeks were fluttering around in my empty stomach as I quietly got up, trying not to disturb his sleep.

Just before I made it to the door, though, he just _had _to go and fuck it up.

"Going somewhere?"

I rolled my eyes, not at all surprised to find that he hadn't even been asleep this entire time.

"I take it vampires are light sleepers?"

"Very."

"Of course," I muttered under my breath as I opened the door. I could feel his presence right behind me as I made my way to the kitchen, still trying to wake up completely.

"Where are Bonnie and Damon?" I asked, momentarily forgetting their plans when I noticed how silent the house was besides my laborious breaths.

"School. The kiddies won't be home for hours, giving us lots of time to get to know each other better."

Oh, Damon. You and your innuendos. Don't worry; I don't mind.

I scowled at the cupboard I was rummaging through when I felt his eyes on my ass, purposely sticking it up in the air before whipping around to toast my piece of whole wheat bread.

"Whoa; can you do that again?"

I looked down and noticed for the first time what I was wearing. "I'm wearing my granny bra under a ratty old t-shirt and a pair of your too-big boxers that go down past my knees. That doesn't sound particularly sexy to me."

"Oh, but it is. And please, feel free to show me what a granny bra looks like."

I felt a sudden wave of confidence, figuring he thought I was sexy to at least some extent, and threw my old shirt to the other side of the kitchen, exposing my granny bra in all of its glory.

Jutting my chest out proudly, I smiled smugly while his mouth hung open in shock. Slowly, his perfect lips curved into a perverted grin, which turned me on _way _too much for my own good. Especially since we had the house to ourselves.

"I like granny bras," he finally decided out loud while I put my toast on a plate and sat down across from him. I sighed when I bit a piece off of my crunchy toast, the only way toast should be eaten.

He looked at me in disgust. "You like burnt toast?"

I rolled my eyes. "Duh. It's the only way to eat it."

"Oh, really? Because I've heard that people like it with a light, golden-brown around the edges. Not blackened."

"You heard incorrectly."

"Whatever, girlfriend."

"Whatever, boyfriend."

We sat in silence, but it wasn't awkward like it was with Stephanie. In fact, it was quite peaceful. He sat, making rude hand gestures, while I shook my head at him and crumbled my toast to bits before swallowing it, sending me into a coughing fit.

He stared at me, concerned, until I quieted down again.

"Are you okay?"

I nodded in response, getting a glass of orange juice and walking sluggishly slow.

"You're very toned."

I felt myself blush, unable to decide how to take that compliment. "Um… thanks?"

"You're welcome."

I felt like he was still waiting for me to say something so I started babbling like an idiot. "I used to work out every night, but then I discovered the secret world of vampires and I stopped."

He shrugged. "I work out."

"_No."_

He sneered at my sarcasm. "I was merely going to say that we could work out together, if you wanted."

I thought about it for a little while. As an advantage, I would be in even better shape. As a downer, it would be totally and completely humiliating for him to see me sweating like a pig and jiggling everywhere.

"Maybe." More like _not._

"So, what _are _we going to do with ourselves today?"

His long fingers traveled up my thigh slowly, dancing across my skin and playing with it like it was an instrument. I squirmed in the chair, feeling immense lust, as he did his typical 'smile with the eyes and smirk tauntingly with the mouth' routine.

I let his hand stay there, every once and a while going just below where I needed it, masochistically enjoying the slow torture. Closing my eyes, I relaxed and let him take over me. It was strange, how much I had come to trust him over just a few short weeks; I was listening to my heart instead of my head for once, and so far it was working out pretty well for me.

My eyes flew open when his hand lightly brushed over the front of my—his—boxers, causing me to suck in a deep breath and clamp my fingers around the sides of the chair. He cocked his head to the side curiously and brushed back down, making me squeeze my eyelids shut and focus on breathing before I actually passed out.

"Is that a good reaction?" He genuinely sounded like he didn't know the answer to my question, surprising me.

What surprised me even more was that I had the ability to speak. "Of course it's a good reaction, you idiot!"

He smirked again and went back to brushing up and down, up and down… up and down. His fingers weren't even making any real contact, but the action alone was enough to get an intense reaction out of me. I wondered what it would be like without having the barriers of clothes between us.

I was still struggling with the thought of us having sex. I wanted to; I really did. There was just something holding me back from it.

I had decided that it was because I actually cared for him, unlike all the other guys I had screwed in the past. Damon wasn't a person that I just wanted to fuck and forget, like he'd never come into my life. He was different… he made things better when he was around.

Pardon the following cheesy analogies, but I need to get this out to someone. Like the sun, he lit up the day when he entered the room. He had an effect that always calmed me even when I knew that I should be panicking, and with one touch he could get me to do anything he wanted me to do. Best of all, he could _always _make me laugh.

See how fucking stupid that sounded? Still, it was true. Real relationships weren't like the ones that you saw on television… they were cheesy, but not _that _cheesy.

I looked down, somewhat disturbed to find that I hadn't noticed his hand was still there. What had caused a borderline heart attack before was now calming me down, like he was soothing me into a deep sleep.

"I don't want to lose you," I blurted out.

He squinted his eyes, confused. "I'm right here."

I sighed deeply. "They say that the number one key to a healthy relationship is communication, right?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. In all honesty I don't know much about healthy relationships."

I weaved my fingers through his and stood up, not really caring that the majority of my body was on full display.

"Let's communicate, then."

I dragged him (theoretically, of course) to the parlor and sat down next to him on the couch, curling into his side without even realizing I was doing it. His arm automatically went around me and I expected to feel uneasy or embarrassed… but instead, I just sat there, perfectly at ease despite the butterflies in my stomach that were there whenever Damon was.

"You said you don't want to lose me."

Maybe I'm not the only person that states the obvious around here.

"Yes."

I guess he was waiting for me to elaborate, because he didn't. We stared into each other's eyes for a minute, just searching, like we were looking for answers in each other.

"Could you elaborate on that, please?"

Did I have to do _everything _around here?

I closed my eyes in an attempt to compose myself. "I guess I just feel like… like, um… if we…"

"If we… what?"

Breathe, Elena. "If we have sex, then that's all we'll ever want to do. I'm afraid we'll lose everything that our relationship's all about if we don't communicate."

"Who says we have to stop communicating just because we start getting physical?"

"Well, no one. But it just seems like we're both the type of people that like to have sex."

"Obviously."

Thank you. "So what if we don't want to stop?"

"Stephanie will just have to walk in on us, then."

I snorted. "What if Stephanie isn't home?"

"Then Bonnie will walk in on us."

"But what if Bonnie isn't home?"

He paused for a minute, seeming to be deep in thought. "What's got you so worried that we'll get addicted to having sex?"

Oh, _hell _no. He doesn't need to know that I'm addicted to semi-hand jobs. I think I'll keep that bit of information to myself.

"Nothing in particular; I'm just worried, that's all."

He hugged me closer with his arm, being uncharacteristically nice. "Elena, Elena, Elena. You've got _nothing _to worry about. You know that, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I know. I just… never mind."

If there was one person who didn't let things go, it was Damon Salvatore. "You just what?"

"Nothing. It'll sound corny and stupid."

"I'll try my best to listen and to keep my ears from bleeding."

"I don't want you to be just another guy that comes and goes within a couple of days, alright? I want you to be along for a really long time, because I care about you and I don't want to lose you. But sometimes I'm not even sure that you're all that into me."

He stared at me for a long time with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "Trust me, Elena; I'm more than just slightly 'into you'. I'm sorry if I've given you any evidence to lead you otherwise. But there is one thing that I can't say."

"What?"

By answering me, he leaned over and kissed me, using his palm to support the back of my neck as his mouth glued to mine.

"That."

** Stefan's POV**

School. Monotonous, boring, dreadful, grueling, putrid and stupid high school, to be exact.

To the best of my knowledge, this is actually the only time you'll ever hear directly from my point of view (Elena likes to hog things), so I'll tell you everything she doesn't know or won't tell you.

I'm not the idiot that everyone pegs me to be; I'm not even sure why people get the impression that I'm stupid. Back when I was a teenager I was well educated and would have gone to college, had the opportunity come up. Of course, that all went down the drain when I became a _vampire _of all things.

Damon never understood why I adopted the vegetarian diet. From his point of view, being a monster was the coolest thing ever. From my point of view… well, let's just say I'm not quite as enthusiastic about being a member of the undead society.

Why did I go back to high school? Sometimes, I even have to ask myself that question when dealing with the imbecile adolescents and grumpy middle aged teachers. I think we all know that I did it for Elena, the girl who has hated me ever since she laid eyes on me.

My initial reaction came from the fact that she was obviously a doppelganger of Katherine, the girl you haven't heard about yet. Here's the basic story: we met back when I was a teenager. We fell in love and everyone was great, and then entered Damon. As always, he did his best to make my life a living hell and we tried to make her choose between us. Seeing as how she couldn't, she decided the easiest solution would be to go out into the sun without her ring and die.

The end.

I suppose you can now see why I would be keen on keeping Elena around for as long as possible; it was like staring at Katherine all day long.

But I digress, because God knows what she and Damon were up to back at the house. I, in the meantime, get the enormous pleasure of being a Mystic Falls High citizen.

I growled under my breath, annoyed when I felt someone soft bump against me. I could barely feel it but I knew that whoever was unlucky enough to run into me was going to have bruises the next day. I huffed when I saw that it was Tyler Lockwood, the most arrogant and egotistical boy in school.

Actually, he reminded me of a less evil version of my dear brother.

"Hey, Salvatore! Watch where you're going."

I glared at him until he stopped staring at me, making it clear that I would have no problem getting into a fight with him. He moved on with his little group of friends and I continued on my (not) merry way until I reached Bonnie.

Oh, Bonnie. In all honesty, I was dating her more out of pity than anything. She was nice enough but clearly paled in comparison to Elena and was rude and scrappy, always ordering me around like she was my mother. The best part was that she could not even be five feet tall and thought she was Shaquille O'Neill.

"Stefan!" She squealed, throwing her stick arms around me. I refrained from rolling my eyes and loosely returned her embrace.

"Hello, Bonnie." My mundane response did nothing to discourage her.

"I'm, like, _so _excited for English today. I heard that we're getting a new book to read!"

Oh, joy.

"Is there such thing as a book that you haven't read?"

If she calls me old, I swear…

"I mean; you're from the nineteenth century."

She said it. I sighed and pretended to laugh, causing her to laugh along.

"Of course I haven't read _every _book in the world; I've just read a lot of them."

As we walked, I ignored my gag reflex and walked as far away from her without being rude as possible.

"OMG, I read an article about Robert Pattinson and he says that vampires really do sparkle in the sun!"

I pinched the bridge of my nose and willed my head not to explode into a million little pieces.

"I can assure you that vampires do _not _sparkle in the sun. Robert Pattinson is an actor… and a human being. He'll say anything to get you to stay infatuated with him."

She stood there, silent and shocked for about ten seconds, before giving me the look of death. "I. Will. Kill. You."

I chuckled humorlessly. "Sorry; too late."

She ignored me for the rest of the walk there and took her seat in the back after dodging the unwelcoming greeting from Mrs. Sasquatch. I gave the teacher a curt nod and sat next to Bonnie, preparing myself for the most boring lesson in history (or in English…).

Mrs. Sasquatch waited for everyone to take his or her seats and yelled at some unlucky child for being late, circling around the room like an animal coming in for the kill.

I knew the feeling.

"Salvatore!" She barked as she took attendance.

"Here," I quietly called out as I winced at the ringing in my ears.

"Of course you are."

What a pleasant lady.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXVZ

I somehow managed to survive the school day until lunch came around, when things started to turn sour. Bonnie sat next to me and flipped through her magazine while I stared at the sandwich I had bought in disgust, unable to identify the thing that the school referred to as, 'meat'.

Because of this ever-so-appetizing monstrosity that was sitting in front of me, I had nowhere to look but the wall. And the wall was not attractive; it consisted of bricks, only they made them even _prettier _by going over them with some kind of camel-tan shaded paint. Forced to look at it, I began to count bricks until I felt something tiny and clammy clamp down around about half of my arm.

I whipped my head around to see Bonnie almost hyperventilating over a page in her magazine.

"Look, Stefan! It's Justin Timberlake without a shirt!"

Why was he still famous?

I didn't dare look at the page, despite her efforts to get me to. Believe it or not, I was not the type of man that enjoyed spending their free time gazing at pictures of borderline-porn…_especially _not if it was another man in the article.

"Well, why isn't he wearing a shirt?"

She rolled her eyes like I was the dumbest doorknob to ever walk the planet. "Because he's in the desert. _Duh._"

I didn't bother informing her that

a) he wasn't in a desert; he was on some set

or

b) the fact that you would only get severe sunburn if you walked around in the desert without a shirt.

"That's great. Enjoy your magazine, Bonnie."

She beamed at me and I sat in (semi) peace for two minutes and thirty-six seconds before I felt a small and sweaty palm rubbing up and down against my stomach, somehow having wormed its way up my stomach without my noticing.

"Um, Bonnie? Now's probably not the best time."

To be honest, sex with her had been _repulsive._ Witches were weird smelling and tasted even worse, and she kept wriggling around the entire time. Now, Elena, on the other hand…

I groaned as I caught myself thinking about her again. In my old-fashioned mind, it was creepy and perverted to think about a woman in such a way. I don't even want to know what goes through Damon's mind when they sleep together every night.

"Do you like that?"

"No," I blurted out, immediately slapping a hand over my mouth once I'd heard the forbidden word come out.

"What. Did. You. Just. Say?"

She's angry now.

"I wasn't talking about you… I was talking about the poster up on the wall.

"Oh, shut your stupid trap, Stefan! There is no poster up on the wall."

I really didn't have anything to respond to that so I just sat there, waiting to hear that I was going to be single for the rest of eternity all over again. Now I'd only have to wait another two hundred years for a girl that I was even remotely interested in to come along…

Unless Elena changed her mind, of course. But she wouldn't. I knew it.

I saw the way she looked at my brother when she thought no one was looking. She was different around him; her eyes were more awake and her laughter was somehow even more contagious.

There was something different about Damon, too. I couldn't quite pinpoint it, but I think he may very well have been (dare I say it)… happy. At least, to a certain extent.

At the end of the day, all that really mattered was that the two people I cared about the most were happier. Shouldn't that make me happy, too? Perhaps it was possible that I could grow to love Bonnie, after all.

Glancing over at her, I decided that she wasn't so bad. Her red hair was very fiery, much like her personality. Her skin was only a couple of shades darker than mine was and her lips were full and pouty, glaring at the wall.

Hoping that I wasn't going to regret it, I grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around, planting her lips on mine.

** Bonnie's POV**

Oh. My. God.

Happy, happy day! This was the first time I had kissed Stefan sense the sex from a few weeks ago, so to do it again was literally like heaven for me.

All of my anger forgotten, I threw my arms around his neck and hopped onto his lap, and I just _knew _that all of our classmates were watching.

But in that minute, I had an Elena moment. I said to myself, who cares what they think? They're losers if they don't like me!

My newfound enthusiasm was enough to get me through the rest of the day. Stefan was in a better mood than usual; he actually attempted to socialize with me and didn't pull away when I held his hand in the hallway.

My teachers weren't intolerable jerks to me; I didn't run into Caroline all day; _and…_ did I mention that I got to kiss Stefan?

It was my dream day, in a nutshell.

And then it all went downhill.

As we stood outside, I noted that it was beginning to get chilly, Mystic Falls showing signs that the summer was long gone. Soon, it would be time for the annual Halloween party.

Last year, Elena and I had gone but refused to dress up, mostly there to make fun of all of the idiot girls that still wore witch (how ironic is that?) costumes like they were in the third grade.

Stefan and sat outside of the school for a little while, just talking about stuff. Apparently, he didn't want to run any risk of walking in on 'unsightly things' (his words, not mine). We sat for about fifteen minutes before he went to go get the car while I got up and stretched my legs.

I stood there for a minute, noting that it was getting colder by the second. Soon I was shivering and wrapping my arms around myself, wondering where this weather could have come from so abruptly.

There was an icy breath on my neck and a body behind mine.

"Do you have the book?"

I screamed loudly, but no one seemed to pay any attention as I slowly turned around. I came face to face with the same vampire Elena had pointed out at the carnival, saying that she was Jeremy's girlfriend.

"What book?"

"Emily's spell book, you idiot!"

I stared at her, trying to think of anything that would ring a bell and magically save my life.

"Do you have it or not?"

"No."

She sighed, exasperated.

"Alright. You're coming with me."

"What? NO!"

I started to scream before she cut me off with her hand, knocking me out with a flick of her finger and taking me God knows where.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

It was cold, damp and dreary.

Those were the three words I would use to describe my surroundings as I came-to in some random room in the middle of nowhere.

"Hello?"

Little did I know that I didn't want to be found.

"_Hello_? Can anyone hear me?"

"Oh, I can hear you."

I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw the girl appear right in front of me, just inches from the corner I was huddled in, noticing that her boots looked _awfully _sharp around the heel.

"What's your name?" It was annoying me.

I guess the question annoyed her, too. "It's Anna."

I studied her for a minute with nothing better to do. She had dark hair and dark eyes, wearing almost all black besides her shirt and was very small. I would guess she was a couple of inches taller than me.

"Why am I here?"

"You are here because I know that you have Emily's spell book; I just don't know why you won't give it to me."

"I won't give it to you because you don't have it."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I really don't."

Oddly enough, I wasn't scared… I was more of annoyed. Why did I have to be stuck here? She didn't have any sort of power over me.

"Look, I don't have your stupid spell book. I just want to go home!"

Oh, great. Now I really do sound like a whiny brat.

"I don't think so."

"Well, how long are you going to keep me here?"

"Until I find out where the book is?"

Fine. You want to play hardball? I'll just take my anger out on someone else.

"Damon has it."

She looked at me cautiously. "Who?"

"Damon Salvatore has Emily's spell book."

"Oh, really? Because I just talked to him and your little friend, Elena, a couple of nights ago. They don't have it, so try again."

"No, he really does! He's lying to you. Don't you know him at all?"

She shrugged. "Sure. He's a manipulative little bastard. That doesn't mean he has the book."

"I think you just answered your own question."

Yes! I must be getting smarter, because she stopped to think for a minute, which was all I needed. Summoning up everything I'd learned so far, I closed my eyes and concentrated on shoving all my anger out to her.

I opened them to find her clutching her head in agony, slowly slipping down to the floor in front of me.

"That's right," I said, careful not to lose focus. "Leave us alone or I can do this to you all day long!"

She ignored me, burying her fingers into her hair.

I took that as an okay and headed for the front door, still channeling my anger through her. Her low groans from the other room were confirming that I had done my job as I quickly opened the door and ran out into the night, realizing that I'd been out here for hours.

Who knows how long I'd been knocked out?

I wandered around the forest for a while, feeling paranoid and looking behind my back every ten seconds. The full, silver moon was shining from the midnight sky, casting a soft shadow on my walking area and making things slightly easier on me.

"Thank you, moonlight."

I stumbled around for hours, finally making my way out to civilization alive at the crack of dawn, believe it or not. I hitchhiked with some random dude back to my old house and exhaled in relief as I gave my grandmother a big hug,

There were still lots of things that I needed to do. I called Elena and left a message, knowing that they were all out looking for me. I would have to introduce Stefan to Gram soon. The crazy vampire chick would be after me soon enough. I was going to have to help plan some school events. I needed to destroy Caroline Forbes. And, of course, I needed to master my witch powers.

For now, though, I just want some damned sleep.

**AN: This is going to be a long AN, guys. Beware.**

** First off, the reason why I wrote this chapter so differently: I did it because I want to see how you guys react to hearing from a different person's perspective. You'll also notice that I didn't write anything from our favorite vamp… that's because I'm considering writing this entire story from his perspective, after this one's complete (fear not; that won't be for a long time). Are you guys interested?**

** I think Damon deserves his own story, because Elena may not know all of the reasons he went after her in the first place by the end of the story. Was it to spite Stefan or was it for different reasons in entirety? With such a strong personality, it's pretty hard to give him just a section of a chapter, just like it would be for Elena to just have one chapter. You can't do it. ALSO: title suggestions, should the story come to be?**

** Also, I know you guys are going to be bitching about the fact that there are no lemons in this chapter. ;( The news is kind of good and kind of bad: there won't be a real one for a couple of more chapters. Of course, the more feedback I get, the more likely I'll be motivated to write one. Sorry, guys, but both D&E and I need to work up to writing a lemon. I've never written a full one before and it makes me somewhat nervous, but I would be expecting one soon enough if I were you.**

** Should I start doing teasers for chapters? I don't know, leave me your thoughts on it, because the story gets updated every Monday anyway… let me know.**

** And finally, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who takes the time to review/put me on story alert/favorite me. It means the world to me and every single one of you is awesome! I fucking love you guys.**

** Wow, this was long. Sorry about that. I need to go before someone chases me down the street with a pitchfork for either not writing a lemon or wasting their valuable time by writing this long-ass AN.**

**Love,**

**Evie**

**PS: I cannot **_**stand **_**Elena being such a bitch to Damon on TVD. What is **_**wrong **_**with that girl? If she doesn't dump Stefan soon… no, I'll still watch it anway. ;)**


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who took the time to review/favorite. You guys are the best! Enjoy the chapter.**

**WARNING: This chapter's going to be kind of weird, and it's also going to be really short. I'm sorry about that, but there's a reason for it, which you'll understand by the end of the story.**

**Disclaimer: None of it belongs to me. **

**Chapter Ten**

"Damon," I whined as he traced his fingers up and down the inside of my denim-clad thigh.

We were sitting on the couch, _supposedly _watching the Food Network. By supposedly, I mean that while Giada over pronounced her Italian words, Damon was annoying the hell out of me by playing a game called, 'let's see how far we can take Elena before she goes over the edge of insanity'.

I don't like this game… at all.

"She's zesting _another _lemon? Jesus! Who puts lemon zest in pizza dough?"

I shrugged and tapped at his hand angrily. "I'll zest your fingers if you don't move them."

He rolled his eyes and reluctantly removed his hand, only to put his entire right arm around me less than ten seconds later.

"Damon!"

He shrugged innocently. "What? Can't I put my arm around my girlfriend without they're being an FBI investigation?" 

My face remained stony as I leaned into his embrace, but on the inside I was giggling and clapping my hands at his only partially sarcastic remark. I let out a slight chuckle and he smirked, tickling my side.

"Stop it!"

"No."

I growled at him and he laughed at me, telling me my mighty roar was pathetic.

"If you don't stop that right now, Giada is going to pop through the screen and zest a lemon on you."

Remarkably enough, he stopped after that, probably fearing that my threat wasn't so far off.

I'm telling you; that woman will do _anything _to zest a lemon.

"Did you know that lemons have antioxidants that are good for your skin?"

He stared at me like I was insane. "I'm a guy, Elena."

"Can't guys have clear skin?"

"Yeah… but we just _have _it. Who the hell would rub a lemon all over their face just to get these precious 'antioxidants' that you speak of?"

"I would."

"Can I watch?"

"You're a pervert."

"I know."

"Good."

We sat in silence for a while, and then the doorbell rang. Damon muttered several curse words under his breath as he zoomed to the door while I rolled my eyes.

"Stupid vampire speed."

"I heard that!" he called over his shoulder.

"Of course you did."

He opened the door at the same time the phone rang. He ignored whoever was trying to speak to him and ran to the phone, answering it rudely.

"What?"

"Didn't anyone ever teach you manners?"

He ignored me and scowled as the person over the phone spoke frantically.

"Why would I care if she's missing?"

My curiosity piqued as his seemed to drop impossibly lower.

"I don't care if she's your girlfriend; she's a bitch."

I frowned, wondering where Bonnie could have escaped to and tried to focus on not worrying. If there was one thing that Damon has taught me, it was that mulling over something wasn't going to change anything.

"Leave me alone, Stephanie."

"That's _my _nickname," I grumbled under my breath.

"If you call me again, I'll change my number. Yes, I will. Shut up!"

He hung up the phone on his very angry brother and told me to remind him to change his phone number.

"No promises."

He returned to the impatient person at the door.

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"Uh…"

"Make it fast, kid. I have a life."

I snorted.

"Um… I'm Matt. You know me." Ugh. What does he want?

"I don't recall meeting you."

"Dude! You shoved me in a closet. How does someone forget that?"

"Yeah, well, I shove a lot of people in closets. If you don't tell me what you come for I'll have to ask you to leave."

"I'm here to see Elena, alright? I went to her Aunt Jenna's house and she told me that she'd gone missing. She looked sad, dude."

"Don't. Call. Me. That. Ever. Again."

"Why not?"

"Because I'll kill you."

"Fine. Jeez! Can't you give a guy a break?"

He looked at him with disgust and gestured for me to come forward.

"Elena, darling, there's some juvenile delinquent here to see you."

"You know what? You strike me as more of a juvenile delinquent than anyone else here."

He laughed. "Kid, I've been promoted. Now I'm just, 'delinquent'. And I wear my badge proudly, BTW."

"You speak text?" I asked.

"How else would I understand anything that Bonnie says?"

I shrugged. "Good point."

Matt scoffed and stomped his foot. "Um, _hello?_"

"_What?_" Damon hissed, causing him to shriek and step ten steps backward.

"Damon! That wasn't nice."

"I don't play nice. I'll be in our room."

My eyes widened as he turned around and disappeared in a flash… _our room._

I must have been grinning creepily because Matt avoided me with his eyes.

"So…"

"Why are you here?"

"What _is it_ with you two? Stefan and Bonnie are nice!"

"Well, I hate to state the obvious, but we're not Stefan and Bonnie. Unlike Damon, I actually _do _have a life, so if you could please tell me why you're here, I would really appreciate it."

"Do you know what time it is?"

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously? You came over here and interrupted our activities to ask for the time?"

"Just do it."

"Stupid fucking idiot," I muttered as I walked over to the clock.

"It's five o'clock, Matt. Now, will you please leave?"

"It's five o'clock, Elena."

"That's what I just told you." I exhaled deeply to control my anger that was quickly building up.

"Shouldn't two people be home by now?"

Oh… Bonnie was missing… not good.

"Well, maybe they're just running late. I wouldn't be too terribly worried."

"I am."

"Okay."

We stood in awkward silence for exactly three minutes and forty-two seconds, with no noise except for Damon loudly coming up with derogatory names for Matt from the upstairs.

He rocked forward on his heels. "Um… I guess that's it, then. Just thought you should know."

"Thanks. I think."

"Yeah."

"See you later."

"Bye-bye."

That's another reason I broke up with him—he spoke like he was a toddler that was just beginning to learn the English language.

"Damon?" I called loudly.

"What?" I jumped when I heard his voice from right behind me.

"Stop that!"

"Stop what?"

"Appearing out of nowhere!"

"Well, I'm not appearing out of _nowhere…_"

"Shut up. Where could Bonnie and Stefan be?"

He shrugged. "Hell?"

I slapped his arm and winced as my palm tinged red from stinging. "That's hardly helpful. Did Stefan say anything about being somewhere after school before he left?"

"Well, he just called me about a missing witch in his most frantic voice, so I'm guessing this wasn't staged."

I felt a twinge of guilt for not being there, even though I knew that it wasn't my fault.

"I hope Bonnie's alright. And what if Stefan's trying to form some kind of plan that will get them both killed?"

He sat down and pulled me on top of his lap, jostling me. "You know how he is: always trying to be cryptic and mysterious, but then ends up doubting himself and just drops the idea all together."

Never underestimate Damon Salvatore. He can come up with the perfect analysis of a person in literally one sentence without even thinking about it. Then again, they've been dealing with each other for a _long time…_

"I wouldn't worry, Elena. I'm sure they're just being dorks and studying for some random History test. Which would be really fucking stupid, even for him, because we're _part _of the history kids are studying today."

"Why would he call if they were studying together?"

"Because she was on the wrong wing of the school and was looking for him. I'm sure they've met up by now."

I stared up at the ceiling as full-blown paranoia took over.

"I'm not worried."

I glared. "Is that supposed to surprise me?"

"Not really."

I huffed and yanked a stray hair out of his face that had been bothering me before running my fingers through it, not even realizing how weird I was being.

He almost blushed, which was downright adorable, before his eyes flickered over to the bottle of Bourbon.

"Err… sorry about that. You like alcohol, don't you?"

"Want some?"

I stared at him, amused. "You're asking an eighteen year old girl if she wants Whiskey?"

He grinned. "I'm a rule breaker."

He must have taken my response as consent because he poured me a glass and downed his own, rolling his eyes as I sipped on mine daintily. I didn't really like the taste of it but I kept drinking it anyway because I didn't want to look like a loser. I was just starting to get used to the taste when Bonnie popped back into my brain.

"What time is it?" I asked absentmindedly.

He glanced at his watch. "Five after five."

"I hope they're alright."

That damned Matt had me all worked up about nothing, most likely. Even thought I was worrying for no reason I could feel my heart racing as I stared at the watch on his wrist, counting the seconds to keep myself preoccupied.

"Elena," he groaned. "You're worried over nothing. I'm positive."

The more he tried to reassure me, the more paranoid I became.

"What if they got hit by a bus?"

"Stefan could stop a bus with one of his bare hands, and he's a little weakling."

"And Bonnie?"

"You know how he is; all of that chivalry crap that no one gives a damn about anymore."

"What if they're not together?"

He deliberated for a minute. "Well… then… all hell will break loose."

My breathing was getting faster by the second. "That's _very _comforting, you ass!"

"Elena. They _are _together. I can't come up with a reason they wouldn't be."

I couldn't, either.

"It doesn't matter if we can't come up with a logical explanation; you're a damned vampire, for Christ's sakes!"

I couldn't tell if he was offended or if he just smelled something bad.

"What if they're… dead?" My voice was high and squeaky.

"Elena! We got a phone call. That's it. Why the hell would we assume that they're _dead _just because of a phone call?"

"Why wouldn't we?"

"Because it's stupid!"

"Let's go on a walk." I spoke without even thinking, somehow knowing that it was the right thing to do.

"What?"

"Let's. Go. On. A. Walk. I thought you were supposed to be smart, dumbass."

"Rude."

"No, you're rude."

"Let's just go."

My mind was still reeling and it was a very awkward feeling. I started to jog and cursed under my breath as I could feel myself jiggle, not even wanting to know what he was seeing that I couldn't. My boobs were hitting my chest painfully, but I retaliated by breaking into a sprint, almost instantly feeling sweat pour on my face.

"Why are you running?"

He was still walking to keep up with my fastest face, which was _really _pathetic.

"Because the immense pain in my legs is distracting me."

"I'm not even going to ask."

"That's probably for the best."

I was wheezing and I was sore everywhere, but we still managed to make it to the end of the block. We didn't have a specific destination, and yet I knew exactly where I was going.

I yelped as Damon yanked me to a halt, literally coming a quarter of an inch from none other than that bitchy vampire from the other night.

"Oh, what do you want?"

She scoffed at me. "As if I would come here to see _you._ Damon, do you have the book?"

"I already told you that I don't have it!"

"I don't believe you."

"Well, that sucks for you, then."

"Not as much as what I'm about to do is going to suck for you."

She ran off into the sunset while I ran forward again, desperate to find something that I didn't even know I was looking for.

"Bonnie?"

I wasn't getting an answer.

"Damon, we have to find her!"

"This is ridiculous. No, it's beyond ridiculous. If Bonnie's gone, she's going to be somewhere where we can't find her."

I stared at him for a minute before running again, almost running into _another _person.

"Stefan!"

I was so overjoyed that I actually threw my arms around him before instantly recoiling, realizing what heinousness I was cuddling up to.

"Ewe, gross. I can't believe I just did that."

Damon appeared beside me and I leaned against him, sighing as I let him support all of my weight.

"Have you seen Bonnie?"

He shrugged, not really looking sad. "No. But I've come to terms with it."

I stared at him in shock. "…What?"

"I've come to terms with the fact that I might never see her again."

I literally couldn't suppress my anger and lifted up a hand in rage, only to have Damon gently push it down.

"Let me."

In a weird way, it was sweet as he bitch slapped him across the face for me.

"Thanks."

Stefan ignored both of us, annoyed.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"But what about Bonnie?"

"Wherever she is, she's…"

I didn't know how his sentence ended because I suddenly started to black out, out of the blue. I felt my body falling backwards into Damon's arms and my eyes closing, my brain shutting off as darkness surrounded me.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

I woke up over five hours later to Stefan and his ugly hot dog nose leaning over me.

"Ewe! Get away from me!"

My voice was weak and groggy as I struggled to sit up. His overly large hand pushed me back down onto the ground, and I realized that I was back at the house.

"What happened?"

"You passed out."

I couldn't remember anything that had happened, but it must have been bad.

"Why?"

"Because we thought we had lost Bonnie. It turns out that she went back to her old house and is going to be staying there for a while. She left a message on your cell."

I groaned, because I couldn't remember anything that happened.

"I can't remember anything."

He shrugged. "That usually happens when you black out. I'm sure your memory will come back in a couple of days or so."

I lay on the floor, exhausted, and slept. I felt Damon lay beside me at one point and take my hand, but I was too tired to squeeze back.

Something was wrong.

**Third Person POV**

The moon was silver and shining brightly through Bonnie's window as she serenely lay in her own bed, enjoying the first real bout of quietness that she'd felt in weeks.

"This is great," she muttered to herself.

"Not as great as things are going to be once you're back at my house," she heard an eerily familiar voice whisper from next to her. She looked over and shrieked to find Anna leaning over her, staring intently.

"I don't know what little stunt you pulled last time, but I warn you not to try it again."

Before Bonnie could protest she had been thrown out a window and caught in less than five seconds and was on her way to a house that was hell on earth…more literally than you'd think.

**AN: I apologize for not updating in a long time. Life has been insane and I honestly just haven't had the time. I'm going to try to update every other week, and I really mean that, but there's only so much that I can do. If I had a choice I would update everyday like I did on my old stories. Thank you to everyone that reads!**

**This chapter was pretty weird, huh? I can't go into details, as it would ruin the story, but Elena wasn't exactly seeing everything that was happening, which explains why the chapter was so short.**

**Thanks so much for everyone's feedback on Damon's story. I, too, feel like he should get his own chance to speak and it would most definitely be fun to write in his frame of mind for an entire story. The only thing I'm missing is a damned title. ;( Any suggestions? All are welcome.**

**I love each and every person that reads and reviews this story. You are all amazing and I hope you have an amazing day/night! You mean the world to me.**

**With much love,**

**Evie**

**PS1: WTF is up with D and E getting **_**one **_**scene in episode five? Unacceptable.**

**PS2: I do NOT like that they're putting a new girl on the show. We already have enough characters! If she goes after Damon, I swear to God, I'm going to jump through the screen and punch the bitch.**

**:)**


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: I know the last chapter was a little weird, but it's going to be explained to a certain extent in this one. And I think you'll like the chappie because of that. Thanks so much to everyone who takes the time to review! ;)**

**Also- there's going to be more people's POVs than I had originally intended, but I got positive feedback on them last time. Feel free to tell me if you think the story's better if it's just being told by Elena.**

**:)**

**Disclaimer: Once again, I own absolutely nothing.**

**Chapter Eleven**

"What the fuck is going on?" Damon roared.

I sat on the couch and attempted to listen, very much confused, Stefan and Damon's loud conversation that was taking place in the next room.

"How the hell should I know? You were the one that was with her! I was out trying to look for Bonnie the entire time!"

"Oh, right. Your little girlfriend. The one that caused all of this mess!"

"Oh, please. Leave her out of it. We need to find out what's wrong with Elena before she passes out again."

I heard a deep sigh.

"Okay… did Bonnie tell you anything about any sort of spell that she might have used incorrectly?"

"No. But she's been getting more and more tense everyday. She's always looking behind her back like someone's going to attack her, and it's really starting to creep me out."

"Well, that probably has something to do with the fact that she's just been abducted by a vampire, you fucking idiot!"

"She was fine when I went over to talk to her last night."

"Call her and ask."

"What if she's busy?"

"_Now_."

"Fine. But I'm not doing it because you told me to."

"I don't care what the hell your motivations are! I'm just trying to keep my girlfriend alive!" 

I felt a wide smile creep up on my face before I could stop it and slapped myself, concentrating. Their voices were getting quieter.

"How do you even know that someone's out to get her? I think you're being a bit paranoid."

"I don't care! I'm going to do whatever it takes to take care of her, because, right now, she's the only thing in my life that even means anything!"

As much as his speech made tears spring to my eyes (and it really did), I couldn't help but think that they were being a little bit overdramatic for being passing out _once._

All of the sudden, their voices stopped altogether, and there wasn't a single sound in the whole house besides my shallow breathing.

I panicked internally when I realized that they were coming back to see me and shoved myself into a semi-normal sitting position, cringing as I bent my leg in an unnatural way and did my best to look like I hadn't just been spying on their private conversation.

"What are you doing?"

Damon sounded particularly terse as he picked me up and settled me back onto his lap.

"Um…nothing?"

Fail.

"Were you listening in on us?"

"No!"

"Elena."

His scorching blue eyes bore into mine, making me melt into a pile of idiotic goo.

"Fine! I just wanted to know what was going on."

"And what all did you hear?" I could have sworn that I saw a hint of shyness for a second before he masked it up.

"Well, I heard that you think I'm going to die before I passed out once."

He snorted. "You passed out _once?_"

"Yeah…"

"No, my princess of darkness, you did not pass out once. You passed out all throughout the night. Occasionally you would sit up and start screaming bloody murder like you were being possessed."

Hmm… how strange.

"Maybe I was just having nightmares."

"No. This was something more."

"Well, Damon, I think you're making a huge deal out of nothing, personally."

His jaw locked in place as he gave me his 'I'm being obstinate' look. "I know what I saw, and I'm going to protect you, no matter what."

You know what? At that moment, having constant attention from my sexy and overprotective Damon didn't seem half-bad.

Or bad at all.

"Okay. If you're going to insist on us spending the day in here, then I get to pick the activities."

He grinned crudely. "I'm up for anything."

"Oh, I know."

And that was going to make the remainder of that day just that much harder to resist him.

**Bonnie's POV**

I was cold, I was wet, and I was tired. Sound familiar?

That's because I'm back in the same fucking exact position that I had been in just yesterday, feeling the same amount of—if not more—hopelessness.

Last night was _weird. _

At first, I'm lying on my bed, planning on actually getting in on some sleeping action, when Anna decides to pop in and steal me away. Again.

But that's not the end of the fun. Oh, no. We're just getting started.

At first, I thought the girl that walked in the room with Anna was Elena. It had to be, because it looked just like her. Golden blonde hair; blue eyes with specks of gold; a slender frame with gentle curves.

Her voice was different, though. Unlike Elena's, which had always calmed me, this one made me uncomfortable and nervous. She just kept on telling me that I was going to get out of this place soon and we would go somewhere far, far away—just the two of us.

Looking back, I _really _wish that I had taken a crack at my anti-vampire spell.

And then she asked where someone named Lucy was and it all went downhill. Like, _really _downhill.

I asked 'Elena' what she was doing at wherever I was being held captive, but instead of answering honestly, this bitch actually had the nerve to continue to pretend to be my best friend.

"I'm just going to introduce you to a new friend," she had said.

Evil was glowing out of her eyes like the blazing sun as she called for her friend again, and this time I didn't have time to ask what she was going to do before it was too late.

A tan, blonde woman was in front of me, her legs going on for miles and miles and her lips pursed in what seemed to be debate.

"I'm not so sure that we should be doing this…"

The Elena-look-a-like scoffed angrily. "Do you honestly think that we've come all this way for _nothing_? You owe me! Now just get it over with."

Lucy gave me an apologetic look and grabbed hold of my wrist, and then I completely zoned out.

And so now, since I've woken up, the only thing I've done is tried to escape. There were no windows, no air vents, not even a hole in the wall. It was like I was in a jail cell.

"Excuse me?" I called out.

The girl who looked like Elena appeared in front of me along with Lucy.

"Yes?"

My throat suddenly went very dry and I coughed, trying to find the nerve to speak. "Um, hello."

"Hello."

"Um… where am I?"

The girl smirked and slowly circled around me, like a wolf coming in on its prey. "Don't you know? We're out in the middle of nowhere!"

"And does this place have an address?"

She shrugged. "No. Not that I would tell you if there was one."

I noted that this girl's hair fell in shiny ringlets, unlike Elena's pin-straight hair.

"Who the hell are you?" I blurted out. I groaned and cursed my idiotic mouth, slapping a hand over it.

"We haven't officially met, have we?"

I shook my head. "Well… I don't think we have, anyway."

She giggled, and the sound sent chills up my spine. "I'm Katherine."

She stuck her hand out for me to shake and I did so reluctantly; her hand was ice cold, like a dead corpse. Her grip was very firm and I almost thought she wasn't going to let go of me.

But she did, of course. She sat down besides me and beckoned Lucy out of the room. For some odd reason, I felt like my only protector was leaving, even though I knew that she was obviously on this Katherine's side.

"So, Bonnie, what's going on in your little head right now?"

Might as well be honest. "I'm trying to figure out what happened last night."

A peculiar look crossed her face. "I had Lucy use you to channel her powers through Elena, who blacked out while I took something very valuable from her beloved beau." She paused. "And then, we had a bit of extra fun for the rest of the night. No harm done."

If there was one thing I wasn't expecting, it was for her to be honest.

"I don't believe you," I stuttered out in awe. I couldn't decide if she was stupid or brilliant for telling me her master plan.

"No, really! Look what I've got here."

She opened up her palm to reveal a familiar-looking ring.

"Why does that ring look familiar?"

"Because it's Damon's, of course."

"How do you know Damon?" Confusion muddled my voice as I sat there and mulled over the possibilities in my useless head.

"I know Damon Salvatore better than anyone else in the world."

"Even Elena?" She seemed to know him pretty well.

She snorted. "Elena's known him for…what? A month?"

"Something like that." We had all been trough so much in a month that it felt like so much more than it actually was.

"Well, it's going to take a lot more than a month—pardon me, much more than a _century_—to get to know him very well."

"And you would know that because?"

I was pushing my luck, but I had to find out what I could.

"Because I've known him for three, you silly little girl!"

I shrieked as fangs came out of her mouth and her eyes turned a bloody red, her body convulsing and leaning closer and closer to me. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, pretending that there was no one in front of me and that I was just back at home and sound asleep. Soon, I would wake up and Grams would have made pancakes with blueberry syrup, and all would go back to the way it was.

However, I had an infinite amount more trouble pretending when I felt a pair of cool and sharp teeth pierce my throat with little to no warning.

**ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ**

** Elena's POV**

"Do you have any iced-tea?"

I knew I was coming down with something when my throat started to get sore and I had to lie down. My head was on top of his stomach and I had a huge pile of dirty tissues on the floor as Damon combed through my hair with his fingers while we both pretended to watch the Food Network.

"I'm a vampire. The only thing I have iced is Bourbon and blood."

I looked up at him, my nose wrinkled in disgust, and he smirked. "The two go quite well together, actually."

"Says the vampire. I think you might be a bit biased."

"Why are we even watching the Food Network? Neither one of us ever eat anything besides Chicken Noodle soup and hospital blood."

I shrugged and accepted his attempt to change the conversation. "Maybe I'll be a chef one day."

"I think you'd look sexy in a chef hat."

I snorted and rolled over on top of him, making him pull me up.

"Make me some soup."

"Someone's awfully bossy today."

I raised an eyebrow and waited.

"But I kind of like it."

I smiled and continued into the kitchen.

He walked over to the corner and reached his long fingers over near the window that was flooded with light to grab a pain and winced in pain, cringing back into the dark of the room. I stared at him, bewildered and worried, as he shook his wounded hand back and forth.

"Where the hell is my ring?"

"Your…ring?"

"Yes, my ring. You know… the one that allows me to go out into the sunlight?"

Did I miss out on something? Best to play it safe for this time, because he truly looked like he was in a hell of a lot of pain.

"Oh, that one. I haven't seen it."

"Neither have I, and it should be _on my finger_."

"Does it fall off often?"

"No. It's never fallen off before."

"How long have you had it?"

"Since the fifteen hundreds."

"Wow," I muttered. "That's a long time to never lose such a little ring."

"Well, it's kind of important, you know."

"Yes, well, I'm sure it'll show up somewhere soon enough."

He nodded and proceeded to make me some of the most delicious soup on the entire planet, which made my already fantastic day even better.

** Matt's POV**

"Stupid Vikki," I muttered as I picked up the trash from around the house. It would seem that she couldn't go anywhere without dropping some type of drug all over to the floor and then calling me to come and pick her up. It was starting to get old.

"Vikki?" I called.

"Sorry; she's not home. I'll tell her that you asked for her, though."

I spun around to see Elena standing in front of me.

"Elena? What the hell are you doing here? And where's Vikki?"

She sighed impatiently. "I've already told you; she's not here right now. I can give her a message, if you'd like."

"Elena, what are you talking about?"

Before I could ask anymore stupid questions she had hit my head hard enough against the wall to knock me out and send me into a deep, dark sleep.

**AN: I found that this chapter was better when I kept it nice and short, because we found out quite a lot in this chapter. What's Bonnie's secret power? What does Katherine want? And why does she have Damon's ring?**

**Every person who leaves a review gives me more motivation to give you people the answers! **

**Thanks so much to everyone who reads/or reviews. You guys rock my socks and I love you! New update on 11/15/2010.**

**Until next time, with lots of love,**

**Evie (CreativelySpecial)**

**PS: Get stoked for a lemon in the chapter after this next one!**


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: Hey! So this chapter is **_**way **_**early, but I was so anxious about writing the damned lemon that I just decided to get it over with. Thus, I combined two chapters together to make this one full of drama and lemony goodness. Thanks so much to everyone who R and R'd the last chapter! Love you! :)**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**Chapter Twelve**

**Bonnie's POV**

I sat in the corner of wherever the hell I was, taking in the scene of the forest.

I had been given the opportunity to come out and sit in the dining room, which, of course, I took. Anna had given me this nasty-ass porridge stuff that tasted like wallpaper paste in my mouth.

"How's breakfast?" Katherine asked as she came in the door.

"It's really disgusting, actually."

"Ungrateful little bitch," Anna muttered.

"Anna! That's no way to speak to a guest."

"Isn't there some other rule that states that you can't hold your guests as hostages for more than twenty four hours?" I asked hopefully.

She shrugged. "No."

"Um, can I go now?"

She frowned. "Why would you even ask that question?"

"I don't know."

She nodded and retrieved a glass of blood from the refrigerator, making me gag on what was left of the mush in my bowl.

"Do you have to drink that in here?"

"Do you have to eat that in here?"

"Well, unlike you, I cannot just get up and go anywhere I want to, so yes, I do."

"What's the big deal? Its just blood!"

"Well, excuse me, but I'm still a little bit sensitive to that subject, seeing as how you nearly drained me after you used me!"

She made a mocking sad face. "I _am _sorry about that, you know. Believe it or not, I don't do everything I do on purpose. And you just looked so delicious…"

I slammed my dirty spoon down when she leaned in towards my throat.

"No. I'm going back to my cell, now."

She snorted. "Your cell?"

"It might as well be."

She shrugged. "Whatever you say."

I ignored something rude that Anna said and made my way back to my cell where I sat for most of the day, doing nothing.

Lucy came in towards dinnertime and sat down next to me, looking forlorn.

"Err… I'm sorry about what happened last night."

I shrugged. "Don't worry about it."

She looked perplexed. "Who forgets about something like that so easily?"

"I do, apparently."

"Don't you want to know what happened?"

"Not really. Unless someone got hurt, I don't care."

"Well then, I guess you don't really need to know."

"Great."

"What's wrong with you?"

I scowled at her. "There's nothing wrong with me, than you very much."

"Don't you want to know how I know you?"

"You don't know me."

"Yes, I do."

"No, you don't. But go ahead and tell me how you _think _you know me."

"I know you because we're both witches."

I froze. "Um… I'm not a witch."

"Yes, you are. Don't lie to me. It's in our blood."

"_Our _blood?"

"Mm-hmm. We're cousins, you know."

"What kind of cousin would possess her own family member?"

She rolled her eyes. "That's not what happened at all."

I gave her the hand. "You know what? Just forget it. I don't want to hear it."

Before she could continue to bother me, there were loud screams and the familiar sound of Elena saying the word 'fuck' multiple times.

Well, actually it was Katherine, but you get the point. Their voices were the exact same.

Stefan had Anna lying dead, on the floor, next to the refrigerator and was fighting Katherine. He threw her across the room, just hard enough to knock her out, and grabbed me, and then we were gone.

I laughed like a crazy person when I realized that we were actually outside, and it had never felt so good.

"Where are Damon and Elena?"

He shrugged. "Who cares?"

Fair enough.

**Elena's POV (A few hours earlier)**

"Has anyone seen Bonnie?"

Damon groaned. "Ugh! Not again!" 

I glared at him. "I've already checked my phone, and Stefan, you just went over there to find her gone. "

Damon shrugged. "Maybe she went to the supermarket."

"Yes, Damon, because that makes perfect sense. Why didn't I think of that before?"

He put his hands up in surrender (which was a rarity in itself) and sat down.

"Well, let's go over there and see if she's back."

And so we went over to Bonnie's grandmother's house, only to find a note.

_Want her? _, it read in bold calligraphy. _Come and find her._

They both scowled at the note while I noted that there was a weird scent in the air.

"How the hell did you miss that, Stephanie?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "I don't know."

We all argued for a while and finally agreed on just following the scent that led into the middle of nowhere. Eventually, I got tired and they got tired of me slowing them down, so we settled for me hopping on Damon's back and us running from there.

Eventually, we came upon a little old house in the deep heart of the forest. It was made out of a dark stone, and smoke was coming out of the chimney, and there were windows in the front. It was actually quite beautiful, it not a little bit creepy.

Stefan peered through the window as Damon put me down and tensed up immediately, looking like he had just seen a ghost. Damon looked positively murderous when he emerged from the frame and swept me up into his arms, going the same way we had come from.

"Wait! Where are we going?"

"Back home."

"But why? We just got here!"

"It's not safe for you. Or for me, for that matter."

"Damon!" Stefan called out.

"What?" he snapped curtly.

"Don't let her ruin everything."

"Don't let who ruin everything?" I interjected. They both ignored me.

"I'm not. It's not safe for Elena."

"Oh, since when do you even care about Elena?"

From the look on Damon's face, I could have sworn that he was about to bitch slap Stephanie.

"I've cared about her since the second I laid eyes on her."

"But why? She's just a stupid human!"

Damon growled threateningly. "She's more than that. And you take that back."

"No!"

"Why can't you just let me be happy for once, Stefan? Haven't I lived in misery for long enough?"

"Yes! We both have! Now I think you should get over your little high-school crush and move on!"

"It's not just a 'crush', Stefan!"

"Then what is it?"

"I'm in love with her, okay?" he shouted, making my entire world stop. "I love her more than anything else in the entire universe and there's nothing that I won't do for her. And I'm going to keep her safe, no matter what."

He looked downright terrified when he looked at me for the first time after saying that, and it was then that I knew that I completely belonged to him, body and soul.

"Stefan, if Damon says that we need to get out of here, then we need to get out of here, alright? I love him with everything I have and I'm not going to risk that over whoever the hell this stupid girl is. So you can go back, if you want, but I'm not going to."

They both stared at me in shock after my little speech and Stefan turned around, without muttering another word, and left.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I looked up at him and smiled a genuine smile.

**ABCDEFGHIIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ**

We walked in silence for the entire remainder home, neither one of us knowing what to say. Once we closed the door, though, it was like there was some sort of magic in the air.

"I love you," he said as he leaned into kiss me.

I smiled. "I love you, too."

I didn't know if Stefan and Bonnie were okay, but, in all honesty, I really didn't care… because Damon and I were about to do something that I'd wanted to do ever since the first time I'd laid eyes on him.

We were going to have sex.

**ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ**

His hands were everywhere.

My face, my stomach, my chest, my arms, my legs… every part of me was being showered with desperate fingers and hungry kisses, his slight stubble turning me on even further as it softly scratched my delicate skin. Every once in a while he would open his mouth and blow cool air on my scorching hot body, which made me gasp for air as my fingers lost circulation from holding onto the bed's sheets so tightly.

His face made it's way down to my bare stomach, having no time examining it as I was left only in my undergarments. He had ripped off my clothes long ago, and at that moment I honestly couldn't have cared less where they were, even though I knew in the back of my head—where every other thought that didn't have to do with Damon was in that moment—that they were in the corner near the door, which was shut and locked. Good luck killing the mood now, Stephanie.

His soft hair tickled my leg as he kissed along the inside of my thigh, purposely teasing me by making a sexy growling noise, before heading back to my knee. He repeated this circuit several times before I gave up and pulled on his hair like they were reigns, trying to steer his delicious lips up north, which was when I noticed that his noises got louder, which led me to believe that he was actually enjoying the pain.

Of course, my feeble human grasp wasn't going to do him much harm, anyway.

"Ugh," he muttered. "Harder."

Somehow I still managed to let my sarcasm shine through. "I thought I was the one that was supposed to be saying that."

Regardless, I pulled harder on his beautiful dark hair and closed my eyes in contentment as his roars got impossibly louder.

I opened them in shock, just seconds later, when he pinned me down and laid on top of me, supporting his weight on his forearms has he dove into a deep kiss.

His lips were soft as his mouth explored mine, his tongue eager and his breath icy cold, and it was the sweetest kiss that we had ever had. Instead of it being just out of sexual frustration, this was out of true and genuine love. I'd never felt anything like it, but I knew that I never wanted to let such an incredible and rare moment go.

My fingers tangled back into his hair and pulled again, earning his moan of approval. His fingers were locked just above my hips, his thumbs on either side of my breasts. I did what I could to get the rest of my body even closer to his and made a noise of protest as his lips left mine.

He hushed me softly, gave me one more quick kiss on the lips, and then went downward. His lips brushed along my jaw line, down my neck, and onto my chest. He paused and looked up at me questioningly, like he was waiting for my permission.

I inwardly rolled my eyes and nodded frantically as his hands lightly molded around my breasts, just staying there, and then squeezed gently.

It was a strange feeling; it was like a jolt of sexual electricity running all up and down my body, happening over and over again each time he squeezed. I was making all sorts of disgusting and loud noises and I barely even noticed when his hands expertly unclasped my bra in one fast movement… and then he was just staring.

"Beautiful," I could have sworn I heard him mutter just as I was starting to get self-conscious.

Of course, I'd been naked in front of other boys before we'd had sex before. Hell, Matt had seen my boobs. But this was completely different; unlike the rest of them, I actually cared what Damon thought of me. He wasn't just some trophy that I could carry around, no matter how magnificent he was.

No, Damon was much more than that. He was _everything _to me. Without him, I was nothing, and vice versa. And let's not forget how much competition I have to work with. I mean, _look _at him; he's a fucking supermodel! How am I supposed to compete with that?

He must have seen that something was wrong because he stopped and came back up so that we were face to face. He cupped my cheek with his right hand and looked at me, concerned.

"Hey. What's wrong?" He asked me, concerned.

"Nothing," I managed to squeak out, even though something obviously was.

He rolled his eyes. "Now's not the time to lie to me. Did I hurt you?"

I stared at him, confused, which he must have taken as a 'yes'.

His face was horrified. "Oh, God. I did, didn't I? Damn it! Where do you hurt? What can I do to help?"

This excessive babbling was so… unlike Damon. While it was cute, it wasn't what I needed right now. I needed strong, confident and sexy Damon.

"No, no. I'm fine."

Instant relief flooded over his face. "Good. Then what is it?"

I cringed. How was I supposed to tell him that I was jealous of his beauty without looking like a complete idiot?

"Are you sure I didn't hurt you?"

"I'm jealous of your beauty, okay?"

He stared at me in silence. "…What?"

"I'm insecure about my mediocre looks. I mean, _look _at you! You could be a model anywhere in the world."

The reaction I was expecting least from him, out of anything I could think of, was anger.

"Elena!"

"What?"

"Are you serious?"

"Um… yes?"

This man is absolutely blind if he can't see the difference between myself and him, and I know for a fact that he has perfect vision.

He sighed and gently pulled me up from the bed, dragging me to the full-length mirror in the corner. The girl in front of Damon was barely even recognizable.

I had my same golden-blonde hair and blue eyes, my same petite frame, but everything else was completely different. My usually fair skin was flushed with color and my hair was wild, no doubt from thrashing around on the bed. My eyes were bright and wide awake, something that I hadn't seen in a long time.

For the first time ever, I felt like a real woman.

"Do you really think that you're 'mediocre' now?"

I studied the mirror again. "That girl doesn't even look like me."

He frowned. "Elena, that girl looks exactly like you. And that probably has something to do with the fact that she _is _you."

"No, she doesn't! That girl looks like she's been happy and content all her life. I've only been happy and content since…"

"Since what?"

"Since I met you," I realized out loud. I'd come to terms with the fact, even back when I hated him, that it was like everything that had ever been off was right when I met him. It was like a gaping hole inside of me was filled.

He smiled and spun me around to give me a kiss. "Glad I could be of assistance." Our lips didn't lock for nearly long enough, but I wasn't going to fight him, because I knew that there were going to be many more to come.

He turned me around again and this time the girl actually _was _me. I don't know what he did, even to this day, but he sparked something inside of me. You'd think that I'd have enough confidence, but the truth of the matter is that being the same room with Damon takes a hit at anyone's self esteem.

"Thanks, Damon."

I didn't know how I could repay him, but knowing him, he wouldn't want me to, anyway.

"You're welcome. Now get your ass back into that bed. We're not even _close _to being finished."

I squealed as he sprawled out onto the mattress and I fell on top of him, his arms wrapping around my hips to help support me.

"Now, where were we?"

I shrugged, because I honestly had no idea.

"You know what? You're wearing too many clothes."

I yanked his shirt off and he kicked his pants onto the floor, leaving him in just his boxers, which I thoroughly enjoyed staring at.

He smirked. "Want to see what's underneath?"

I must have looked just a little bit too eager because his boxers were gone before I could even wink and, low and behold, was the treasure of all treasures.

It. Was. Huge.

I can't even begin to tell you what it was like to stare at him, completely naked for the first time, but I'll attempt to by asking you this simple question. How many times have you ever gotten to unabashedly stare at your vampire boyfriend's cock that must be, like, a foot long for the first time?

That's what I thought.

"Your turn."

My heart started beating twice as fast as it had been as his fingers hooked inside my panties and slowly pulled down, taking my only piece of clothing and tossing it into the pile of clothes that was slowly but stealthily growing into a miniature Eiffel Tower.

I clenched my eyes shut while he leaned back and took in my general nakedness with his heart-wrenchingly beautiful eyes. My nerves formed into tighter and tighter bunches every time I heard his breathing quicken or slow down.

"Perfect," he muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

I cracked an eye open to see him in the exact same position he had been in, just laying there, very quietly, observing.

"What are you doing down there?"

"Just watching you."

My teenage hormonal body was losing patience with his teasing, and fast.

"I had better be getting some sort of release soon, or you're going to be facing a very ugly sight later," I hissed.

He winked. "Not a problem."

He abruptly slid a long, cool finger inside of me, causing me to shriek in surprise. His thumb circled around my bundle of nerves, making me to hold onto his shoulders for dear life and my legs to shake like an earthquake.

He smirked in his sexy way and pulled out his finger, only to slide two back in, in and out, starting up a fast rhythm.

"Oh, fuck," I muttered into his shoulder. I closed my eyes and focused on breathing as he continued, the minutes that he was doing this being both torturous and wonderful at the same time. One side of me was begging for release while the other one never wanted this to end.

His fingers and thumb sped up even faster and I was _right there_… and then he stopped.

"What… what the fuck?" I spluttered out.

He smiled and brought his mouth up to kiss mine, and I somehow knew that it was time. There wasn't going to be any more of our precious time wasted on foreplay or games.

He flipped us over so that he was on top again and asked me if I was sure.

"I'm sure."

I had never been so sure of anything in my entire life.

He, very slowly, pressed his lips against mine as he pushed inside of me, causing me to moan more loudly than I ever had in my entire life. It was almost uncomfortable at first, due to both his size and the sheer face that it had just been a while since I'd done it, but it didn't take long to get over that.

He pulled out and rammed back into me at a very slow pace, making me pant and sweat and beg him to keep going. He kept on kissing my face the entire time, and he kept his arms around me protectively, reassuring me that nothing bad was going to happen.

Unlike every other time I'd had sex, this didn't feel like a sin. I didn't feel like I was being a whore or dirty. This wasn't even what I could call fucking; it was making love, which was something that I'd never had the pleasure of experiencing before.

I wasn't one of those people that thought I was going to go to hell just because I wasn't married, but this was opening my eyes up to what sex really was. It wasn't about getting my rocks off; it was about being in love and being able to express that physically. It was a truly remarkable feeling to work my way up to what was undoubtedly going to be one of the best orgasms of my entire life.

Just knowing that I loved him and he loved me was enough.

I couldn't help but think back to when we had first met. It was almost hilarious, how afraid I had been afraid of him; there was no one in the world that I trusted my life with more than him, after all. Looking at his face as he made love to me, I knew in that moment that there was nowhere else in the world that I'd rather be.

Eventually, my body was ready, and I began to convulse and shake and shudder all around him. Finally, my walls clenched all around him and I was on an unbelievable high, like nothing else you can ever feel—I was floating on air and seeing stars for a couple of seconds, before I came back down to earth to find myself exhausted, sweaty and in Damon's arms.

I wrapped myself all around him and sighed in both happiness and tiredness my eyes drooping closed. He gave me one last kiss on the lips, reminding me of everything that had just happened.

"Love you," I muttered as I drifted into sleep.

"Love you, too."

And then we slept, having nothing in the world to worry about besides each other.

**AN: Or so they'd like to think!**

**Speaking of thinking, what were your thoughts on the lemon? It's my very first one ever, you know. I'm holding my breath as I'm posting this, because I'm extremely anxious to hear your thoughts. **

**I'm pretty sure the next update will be the Monday after this upcoming one, but who knows? It could be early; it could be late. We'll just have to wait and see.**

**Thanks so much to everyone who takes the time to R&R—you guys are the best and I love you all!**

**Lots of love,**

**Evie (CreativleySpecial)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Thanks so much to everyone for your kind reviews! I appreciate them. **

**We're going to hear from everyone this time, so it's going to be a little bit jumpy. Sorry if that annoys anyone, but it's kind of necessary… and I'll explain why I NEVER update anymore in the bottom AN. Thanks for reading! 3**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**Chapter Thirteen**

I felt a cold pair of hands skidding around the middle of my arm and I swatted it off unthinkingly, half-expecting to wake up to an empty bed and to find that a pillowcase was the culprit behind my awakening.

And then I remembered everything that had happened last night.

My eyes flew open and I violently jerked my body over to the right, only to find none other than Damon, who was simply staring at me while tracing my skin with the edge of his fingertips.

"Good morning, Sunshine."

I made some sort of groaning noise in response and flopped back onto the pillow again, not ready to be awake yet. I scooted back so that I was cuddled comfortably against him and closed my eyes, enjoying the peace… until he started talking.

"How are you feeling?"

What a strange question to ask, especially for him. "Fine…"

"You're not sore?"

I flipped over again to give him an annoyed look. "It's not like I was a virgin, Damon."

He rolled his eyes. "I know _that._ I was just making sure that I didn't grip you too hard or anything."

Oh…

"No, no. You didn't crush my fragile human body."

He gave me a half-hearted smirk. "Good. I just have too much fun with you to break your arm on accident while we're trying to have intimate sex."

I smiled and gave him a kiss on the neck before rolling over. His arms caught me before I could even make an effort to move out of the bed.

Not that it surprised me, or anything.

""Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm hungry." It came out more like a question than anything, but it still got the point across.

"Well, I'm horny. What do you say?"

Ooh… this was a tough one…horny Damon or a Pop tart?

I think I'll take Damon, thank you very much. I rolled over into his arms and didn't leave them for several more hours.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

**Jeremy's POV**

I scowled at the stupid note in my hands as I slapped it down in front of Aunt Jenna, not bothering to explain. The ridiculously long letter that Ms. Sasquatch droned on and on about explained it all.

Apparently, kids were starting to go missing from school. First there were Bonnie and Stefan—even though they had only been gone for a day, so they could just be sick—and then there was Matt, who had been gone for three days. I think his older sister; Vickie—I stupidly pine over her when I think she's not looking—is gone, too.

"Kids are going missing?"

"Yep. That's what it says."

I didn't see what the big deal was; kids ditch school all the time, myself included. Every Friday, me and my friends go get stoned by the creek, and no one's ever said anything to our parents before.

Then again, that's probably just because all my teachers hate me and wouldn't give a damn if I fell off the face of the earth.

"Jeremy! Why haven't you told me about this before?"

I rolled my eyes. "Don't make a bigger deal out of it than it is, Aunt Jenna. I'm sure kids are just ditching and they'll show up by next week."

"And what if they don't? I need to know stuff like this."

And this is why I never tell her anything besides what to order for dinner.

"Fine. Whatever. Can we have pizza for dinner?"

"Jeremy! Oh, my God! What about Elena?"

I felt a dull pain in my chest when she brought up my sister. We had made an unspoken pact not to talk about her, seeing as how she just decided to leave without even telling either one of us.

We were both kind of bitter about the whole thing—and understandably so, from my perspective, anyway. If it weren't for the fact that Elena was already eighteen, I'm sure Jenna would have called the cops on her… but apparently, this was a good way for big sister to learn that she's not ready to live on her own yet. But I digress.

"Don't bring her into this… I'm sure she's fine."

That last part was a lie, of course. I had no clue if she was okay or not. Why should I even care?

She didn't care about us.

"Jeremy! Just because she left doesn't mean that we can just give up on her. She's your sister."

At that, I had had enough and shut down, just like I did before I got high. Emotions were overrated, anyway.

"She's not anymore."

I stormed past her and up the stairs to take a nap, only to find none other than Elena sitting on the edge of my bed as casually as if she owned the place. Like she'd never left.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I managed to stutter before falling back into my chair next to my computer.

"Jeremy!"

There was something off here. This Elena had curly blonde hair and her eyes were different… sleepy, almost.

"Elena?" My voice wasn't nearly as harsh as I would have liked, but what else was I supposed to say? I was in shock.

"No… Katherine!"

Katherine… what the fuck?

I started to protest when the fake-Elena grabbed me by the arm and hauled me out the window, but then I realized that I probably had nothing better to do, anyway, so I just let her take me wherever she was going to.

** Bonnie's POV**

"Stefan!" I whined as he pulled away from me. I tried to pull up his shirt but he just rolled away, huffing like he was taking care of a toddler. I'm sure he was just annoyed that the sun was so bright.

We had spent the entire day at the park, ditching school, just enjoying the fact that we were both still alive.

** "**We can't have sex again, Bonnie… it was a mistake. Maybe if we get married I'd consider it."

Oh, he is SUCH a gentleman! I can't believe Elena thinks she got the better brother! Damon the dirt bag was probably already planning on moving out of town after he got into her pants, anyway.

Right now I was just going to focus on my one true love.

"Remember when you killed Anna right in front of me and then dragged me out of the house? That was _so _romantic!"

I, for one, could not wait until the day that I became Mrs. Bonnie Salvatore, because it would mean two things: awesome vampire sex (maybe); and eternal bragging rights.

What could be better than that? It was so fun to be in love and act like an adult for once. Kid-Bonnie was _long _gone, now.

"Um… yeah," he finally responded, sounding confused.

"What's wrong, honey?"

He sighed deeply. "Please don't call me that."

"Why not? It's a term of endearment!"

He rolled his eyes again. "It's embarrassing!"

"Why? Don't you want the world to know that we're in love?"

"_No!"_ he whisper-hissed at me. "Love is supposed to be private! None of the rest of these people need to know about our… relationship."

I must have been imagining him looking like he was throwing up a little bit in his mouth.

"Are you sick?"

He muttered something under his breath that sounded like "idiot". He must have been referring to the jogger that was running by us.

"Vampires can't get sick. I mean, we can throw up, but we don't feel the effects of it and we can't get fevers."

I sat cross-legged for a minute, absorbing this information. "That is SO AWESOME!" I squealed in his ear before running over to the fountain in the middle of the park, assuming he would follow me.

All of the sudden, the Elena-look-a-like was standing beside me.

"Hi, Bonnie."

Oh, great. I just can't catch a break, can I?

I looked over and noticed that Jeremy was there, too, and immediately feared for the first.

"What are you doing here? And why do you have Elena's little brother?"

He frowned for an instant when I called him 'little' before answering for her.

"Because she says that we're going to go find join up with everyone else. Not that I know who 'everyone else' is."

"Well, who is everyone else?"

I would assume that Elena and Damon were on the list, but what the hell do I know, anyway?

Katherine circled around us like… well, like a cat… and appeared to be thinking over her answer carefully.

"Well, let's see: who all have I captured so far? There's you, and there's Jeremy, and there's Matt, and there's Vickie, and Tyler, and Sarah and Jessica and Hannah…"

Her list was sickeningly long and full of names of people _I _had never even heard of, and I had lived in Mystic Falls my entire life.

She was still babbling on and on when I finally cut her off.

"Okay, I get it! You're an evil psychopath! I just want to know why you're _here._"

I stomped my foot on the ground and screeched in pain as I stubbed my toe.

She laughed at me. "What a stupid, weak little human you are. You are, too, Jeremy." She laughed again and waltzed over to Stefan.

"What a bitch," I muttered under my breath.

Jeremy snorted unattractively. "You can say that again."

I noted that his face wasn't quite as round and fat as I had remembered… actually, it had a nice shape. I scowled when he stepped half an inch closer to me.

"I'm dating _Stefan_, Jeremy."

He made his signature 'I'm stupid and not used to thinking' face. "Whoa, chill out. I'm not hitting on you. Can't a brother shift his weight to the side without getting attacked?"

I glared coldly at his stupid response that took him _way _too long to make up. "Just stay away from me."

"Whatever," he muttered under his breath as he rummaged around in his pocket for something.

"What the _hell _are you looking for?" I snapped after he had continued to search noisily for probably five minutes.

"I thought you didn't want me to talk to you."

I guess that was a smart thing to say, as it was coming from him.

"I don't, you doofus. Now just answer the question so I can tell you to shut up again."

He chuckled idiotically. "Doofus? Who the fuck says _doofus?"_

"I do!"

That used to be the ultimate insult when I was a little kid. I guess I'd have to find something new.

I sighed. "Look, Jeremy; Katherine's bad news. And from what I've seen, she doesn't want you that much, anyway. So just get out of here."

A weird look of insult crossed his face. "Are you telling me that you want me to leave you alone with some crazy bitch in the middle of nowhere, with that guy over there to protect you?"

Oh. My. God. This kid doesn't know about vampires… he doesn't know about anything going on… he doesn't even know who _Stefan _is, the man who's been pining after Elena for the past month.

For the life of me, I had been so busy with everything that was going on that I forgot to make up a simple cover story. I would make a terrible spy.

How in the name of hell was I supposed to explain any of that without sounding like a doofus?

Wait… I meant… moron. Idiot. Whatever.

"Um… there's some… stuff that you don't know about. It's kind of important."

He shrugged. "Like what? Have you got a boyfriend?"

I screeched when I felt Katherine's cold breath on my neck, catching the attention of several walkers for a few seconds. To them she was just an innocent little girl that couldn't hurt a fly.

"Like that I'm a vampire."

I closed my eyes in horror as Jeremy started laughing, because laughter is never good when in the presence of evil beings.

"What's so funny?"

I guess they didn't have humor back in the day.

He stopped laughing. "Sorry. It's just; that was kind of a bad joke."

She scowled.

"No, screw that. It was a _really _bad joke."

She smirked and stood in front of him at vampire speed, making him jump and run away.

She rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath before turning to face me. "Well, he wasn't much use, anyway. I hope someone hits him with a car and he dies."

I stared at her. "Why would you wish that on someone you don't even know?"

She ignored my question and an evil look came over her face. She sighed. "Sorry, but I have to run. I'll be late if I don't hurry."

She was gone in a flash and Jeremy came galloping back from the tree he'd been standing behind, still laughing.

"What's so funny?" I snapped, momentarily forgetting the fact that he thought Katherine had been joking.

"I just haven't heard a joke in a long time, I guess." He looked at me. "Where's Stefan?"

I looked around and noticed that he was, in fact, gone.

"Oh, well. Maybe he went to find Katherine to protect me."

He looked confused. "But…"

"Just shut up, you stupid kid."

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

**Katherine's POV**

To quote Anne Rice: "Evil is a point of view."

In which case, it would appear that I have only one point of view.

I had been on my way to Stefan's house—because I love to stir up trouble—but then that stupid red-head got in my way again.

You know; there are many things that I tolerate. For example: you dreadfully boring humans are alive, are you not? The grass that annoyingly tickles my feet is still firmly rooted into the ground, is it not? And the trees, even when they have caused me many an inconvenience in tracking down my enemies, are still here, are they not?

But the one thing that I cannot tolerate is another woman trying to take my man away from me. Stefan is, after all, the sole reason why I came back to Mystic Falls in the first place.

And then I found out about Elena, the girl who looks exactly like me. I honestly don't give a damn about her—or stupid, love-stuck Damon, for that matter—and I just toyed with her to get one of Damon's valuables. As soon as Damon starts crying like the little baby that he is, Stefan will come after me.

See my plan?

I smiled as I heard Stefan chasing me through the forest, slowing down so that he'd be able to catch me. I allowed him to pin me against a tree and leaned into his touch, missing the way his rough fingers felt on my skin.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he snarled at me.

I smirked coyly. "Why do you think I'm here?"

He glared and breathed heavily as he stood in front of me, obviously not having the slightest clue.

I leaned in impossibly closer. "I'll give you a hint: it has to do with you!"

I pushed away just as his grip loosened on my shoulders and I sped off into the setting sun, on cloud nine as my plan slowly began to unfold before my eyes.

**Elena's POV**

I was exhausted and sweaty, and yet my body still wanted more.

We had been going at it for God knows how long, taking advantage of the fact that there was an empty house. So far we had done it on the bed, the couch, the kitchen counter, the kitchen table, the living room floor, the shower, and the floor of our bedroom.

"Can't…. move…" I somehow managed to spit out as I tried to sit up. Damon pulled me up with one arm and watched, amused, as I hobbled over to the side of the bed in search of some kind of clothing.

"Looking for something?"

Shouldn't that be fairly obvious? "I just want some kind of clothing."

He scowled, looking insulted. "_Why_?"

"_Because_! Don't tell me you go walking around naked in your house all day long."

"No. I walk around in my underwear all day long," he stated matter-of-factly. "But we could always make going naked a new tradition."

"Something tells me Stephanie wouldn't approve."

He rolled his eyes. "Who the hell cares what that prude thinks? I wish he'd move to… somewhere very far, far away. Then we'd never have to hear from him again and we can all live happily ever after."

I smiled. "There's only one problem."

He cocked an eyebrow. "What's that?"

"He'd have to take Bonnie with him."

He smirked. "Princess of Darkness, I don't think he'd miss her too much."

"But she'd miss him."

Damon shrugged. "Humans forget. They heal. Until you meet that one person you can't live without, and then everything changes."

He looked at me under his dark lashes and it was obvious whom he was referring to. I couldn't help but beam, because anything sentimental from him was rare.

"And you don't think Stefan and Bonnie belong together?"

He shrugged again. "Not like we do. They can spend time apart without wanting to be together."

He got up and picked out a plain black shirt, threading his fingers through mine as he handed it to me.

"I love you, Elena."

I sighed. "I love you, too."

He gave me a kiss on the cheek and turned to leave the room. "I'm going to get you something to eat."

I put on his shirt and noted that even though it was huge on me—big enough to be a dress, actually—it was comfortable.

I was about to crawl back into bed when I heard a loud string of obscenities and several growls, tipping me off that he was in pain. I cringed and tried to loosen up the muscles in my hips and thighs as I walked out of the room, but I was limping quite awkwardly as I made my way toward him.

He was cradling his hand to his chest and glaring at the open window, the sun pouring through. I stared, confused.

"What?" I finally asked. I didn't see anything wrong with the picture in front of me.

"My ring," he semi-hissed as he searched for the darkest corner of the room.

"What about it?"

"It's gone! How could I have not noticed that before?"

"Wait…your ring's _gone_?"

He nodded in irritation and walked back in forth, studiously avoiding anywhere close to the sunlight.

"How the hell could this have happened? I've been with you the entire time!"

I thought back in time to make sure that I wouldn't have taken his ring off, but I hadn't, as far as I could remember.

"I didn't touch it."

"I know. I didn't, either."

We both stood, like the awkward idiots that we were quickly becoming, in the dark of the living room, drinking in all of the complications that were sure to come.

Oh, joy.

**AN: I would just like to say that I am SO SORRY that I never update anymore. I feel terribly guilty because when I first started writing, I would literally update every single day, and I so miss being able to do that. Unfortunately, someone very close to me was recently assaulted and turned to drugs and alcohol abuse for relief and was thrown out of her own home as a result of this. And so I offered to take her in until she'd be able to support herself and…well, let's just say that it isn't easy. I'd like to give a hat tip to all of the mothers of the world for taking care of their kids every single day, because you women are amazing. Just toting her to rehab, school and home is exhausting. :( **

**My hope is that this will soon blow over, and I do promise to try to update as much as I can. I'd like to thank my readers for staying loyal to this story even when I haven't been updating, because it means the world to me, and I mean that. I hope you are all well and please leave me a review if you can, because feedback is what makes this story go 'round!**

**Lots of love,**

**Evie :)**


	14. Chapter 14

**AN: Thanks so much to everyone for reading and your kind reviews! My situation's getting slightly better, which means more time for me to write. Enjoy the chapter! ;)**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Stefan's POV**

You know what? I feel like I'm being characterized as the villain, here, which is _completely _ridiculous because my brother's version of a Christmas present is ripping someone's head off, sucking all the blood out of it and then slapping the ugly remains down on a platter.

In summary, I hate my life (it's not even a life, actually).

So you're going to spend a day in _my _shoes, and you're going to find out what it's like to be Stefan Salvatore. Warning: it sucks. Pun somewhat intended.

You wake up and the sun blinds your sensitive eyes, giving you a killer headache as you stand up and stretch out your muscles that are tense from walking back and forth all night, mulling over the complications that are your afterlife. You walk over to the dresser and you can hear Damon and Elena participating in sexual activities directly above you.

Ah, Elena Gilbert. She's a dead ringer of Katherine, the girl that you used to be in love with so very long ago. Damon used to taunt you for loving such a psychopath, but you can't help whom your heart belongs to.

And then Bonnie comes knocking at your door and you hurry to cover your chest with a shirt, not wanting her teenage hormones to flair up. She tries to seduce you, despite your best attempts at remaining disheveled and uncleanly whenever you're in her presence.

You go to school, you cart your "girlfriend" around all day, you come home and get Damon to stop harassing Elena for five seconds and then you feed the entire family…except for big brother, of course. He has to fend for himself.

You still don't know why he came home to Mystic Falls in the first place. You assume that it has to do with the fact that he enjoys tormenting you in every way imaginable, and Elena was just an added bonus.

You can see the way that Elena brings out the humanity in him. You see the brother that you used to know, the man you grew up adoring and aspiring to be like. It's nice to see that not _everything _changes as the years go by and by and by.

As you go to hunt for bunny rabbits and golden retrievers, you wonder how long it will be before Elena becomes a vampire. There's nothing you can do to stop it—both Damon and Elena were too stupidly stubborn for their own good, and there's nothing you can do to change that. At least you'll have company to spend the rest of eternity with.

As long as Bonnie grows up and forgets all about you, life will be good.

And then you go home, give the food out to everyone, and watch over Elena and Bonnie while Damon finds his own snack. You don't question where he gets it because, quite frankly, you don't want to know.

And then you wake up the next morning and the vicious circle of (not) life continues. Welcome to my undead life. Now feel sorry for me, please.

**Elena's POV**

Damon was even hotter than usual when he was angry.

Sorry… that wasn't what I should be thinking about at the moment. It was just a harmless observation.

I was sitting on the couch, shamelessly staring at him, while he walked across the room, over and over again, glaring at everything his eyes made contact with.

"Maybe it's in your pocket." We both knew that he wasn't stupid enough to leave the ring that protected him from, you know, _burning to death _in his pocket, but I was trying to be helpful.

"Yes, Elena; I'm sure I'm stupid enough to have left the ring that keeps me from _burning to death _in my pocket. Why didn't I think of that before?"

I let out a small chuckle against my will, realizing that great (or not great) minds really do think alike.

His glare was deep, penetrating fury straight from the fires of hell. "Is this _funny _to you?"

I shut my mouth. "No."

His face softened and he continued his walk, picking up the pace.

"You know, if you wanted to get some cardio in, I could have just gotten you a Jillian Michaels tape."

His black eyes sparkled with mischief. "I'm pretty sure I already burned both of our calories off for the day, doing things that are _much _more enjoyable than listening to a middle-aged woman scream and flare her unnaturally large nostrils at me." (**No offense to Jillian or anyone else that's a fan… I love her for kicking my ass on a daily basis. Damon, being the eternal stud that he is, doesn't need her motivation.)**

I sneered at him for being smarter than me and turned on the television, being assaulted with the sound of Hannah Montana's voice blaring through the television.

As she whined about having the best of both worlds, Damon's eyes turned from annoyed to shocked and horrified.

"What the _fuck _is that?"

I burst out laughing and changed the channel. "It's Miley Cyrus, of course!"

"That girl who spends all her time trying to come up with scandalous new headlines?" 

"That's the one."

I don't mean offense to anyone that likes Hannah Montana; I really don't. It's just that here in Mystic Falls, we don't really like pop music… or any music, really.

"I hope my ears stop bleeding before I turn twenty five."

I smirked. "Yes, that could take a while, couldn't it?"

He shrugged and plopped on the couch next to me. "Oh, well. More time for us to spend time together."

A thought struck my mind. "Hey, Damon?"

"What?"

"What are you going to do when I start getting old?"

He looked confused. "What do you mean?" 

"Well, I'm going to start getting wrinkly and looking like a granny and stuff… it'll look like I'm babysitting you!"

His face showed no sign of recognition. "Elena…"

He didn't further elaborate, but it didn't look like he was in a very good mood all of the sudden.

"What is it?"

"You promised you'd be my Princess of Darkness for forever."

"And I will…" What the hell was he getting at?"

"Are you not catching on to what that implies?"

I shook my head.

He sighed and stood up. "I thought I had made it fairly obvious that I would turn you into a vampire, and we would spend the rest of eternity together."

My mouth went completely dry. Had I any liquid in it, I would have spit it out.

"I…." I didn't even know what to say to that.

My whole world shifted into a completely new perspective after he said that. There would be no kids, no going to dinner at Grandma's on Christmas eve, no humanity left in me. Was I really ready to give up all of that for someone that I'd known for a few short weeks?

All this time I had thought that I understood Damon, but it turned out that all this time I was really just trying to understand the human side of him that was buried deep. How could I, a mere mortal, understand the complexities of being a vampire for all eternity?

I couldn't.

His vampire side wasn't just the tough mask that he put up, not the part of him that had everyone fooled but me. He thirsted for death upon humans and made no apologies for it. It wasn't a switch that he could turn off and on, like his feelings—he was stuck like this for all eternity and he seemed to enjoy it.

And for the first time since we had first met, I was _terrified _of him.

I could feel my heart beating out of my chest; my eyes wide open as they stared at him in shock. It was much like the first time I had seen him…that feeling like he was going to chase me, hunt me down, devour me. Rip me apart and feed on me.

But then I remembered everything that we had been through together. I remembered the first time he kissed me and I smashed ice cream in his face, and I remembered how he saved me when crazy-assed-Stefan tried to kill me. I remembered all the countless times I had spent in bed, lying awake, secretly wishing that he were there with me. I remembered the first time he told me he loved me, just yesterday, and how it changed me. I remembered the person I was before I met him…and that was enough for me.

Where I was weak, Damon was strong. We balanced each other out effortlessly, helping each other. I was the light with a touch of darkness, and he was the darkness with light hidden underneath.

When I thought about it, the choice was pretty fucking easy. Sure, I could take my bratty little kids over to the grandmother's house while I sat at home, alone, wondering how different my life could have been. I could have Thanksgiving and Christmas and Valentine's day while living a normal life.

But I could also have all those days while living my life in happiness with the man I loved. Who gives a damn about being alive, anyway?

Before I could give him my answer, he held up his hand.

"I know what you're going to say. But before I say it, let me explain my reasoning."

In all honesty, I didn't need his reasoning—logic is very overrated. But who doesn't love to hear their man give you a tear-jerking speech that makes you fall in love with them that much more?

"I remember my life as a human. I remember how weak I was, and I remember what humanity feels like—vaguely, but the feeling is still there.

"But when I met you, Elena, I saw a new side to humanity. You've taught me that you don't have to be a vampire to be strong, and you don't have to be weak just because you're a human. You can find that balance.

"You're stronger than I am, you know. I need you, by my side, for all eternity. I know that I'm not the easiest person to get along with, but I'm working on it. I've spent hundreds of years in pain, mastering the art of masking my feelings because it's easier not to love. But I don't regret a single second of all that pain if this is what I get to feel like for the rest of my life, you as a human or not."

Oh, fuck; I can feel the tears coming on, and there are a lot of them. And for the record, I think he might be the easiest person in the world to get along with, but that's just my unwanted opinion.

"I can see the power in you, Elena. You're strong—but you could be even stronger. And so I'm asking you if you would give me the honor of living the rest of your life with me, undead, unafraid and ready for anything—will you be my Princess of Darkness?"

Yep, I was crying full-force now. It's pretty pathetic, since what he said wasn't even that sappy. Well, maybe it was.

I sucked in a deep breath, giving me just enough air to say the words that would change me life forever. "Yeah. I'll be your Princess of Darkness."

I can't even use words to describe the immense joy that was in his face. It would be an insult to the expression. It almost looked out of place on his usually cynical face, but I had never seen anything so breathtaking.

He leaned in, gave me a long kiss on the lips, and then moved his mouth down to my neck. I could feel his soft lips against my throat, my blood pumping through my veins for what would be the last time. His fangs just barely pierced my skin and I felt the most wonderful tingling feeling when the door opened loudly, an idiotic Stefan walking in on us.

He obviously wasn't going to change me right then and there, but it still pissed me off that our moment was being interrupted by such an imbecile.

Damon let out a feral growl and he it was clear that he was going to _kill _Stefan. Personally, I didn't really care whether Stephanie lived to see another day or not (pun intended), but I was obviously in a good mood because of our activities, pissed off or not.

"Damon," I gasped out, trying to catch my breath.

"What?" He snapped, pinning Stefan to the ground.

I sighed, not really meaning the words I was saying. "Don't kill him. It's not his fault we were out here."

"Yeah!" He piped in, pathetically trying to fight against Damon's iron strength. I guess I'm not the feeble one in the room, after all.

"Stop bothering, Stefan," I muttered.

Damon eventually let go and sat back down next to me, obviously trying to regain composure.

"Welcome home, little brother."

Stefan grinned his ugly grin and sat down next to us.

"So, what were you up to?"

"Well, I was going to feed on Elena, here's, blood, but then you walked in and killed our buzz. So thank you, for that, you inconsiderate jackass."

Stefan arched one of his too-bushy eyebrows that took up half his forehead. "I'm the inconsiderate jackass?"

"That's what he said, isn't it?" I interjected. "I'm hungry."

Stephanie's eyes lit up like a kid's on Christmas. "What do you want? Soup? Salad? A sandwich? A burrito? Stoup? Chicken salad?"

Ewe! I hate nasty chicken salad. "Stefan! Shut the hell up! None of those sound even remotely appealing, and stoup isn't a real thing—Rachel Ray made it up."

"Oh…"

Damon finally cut in. "How about pop tarts?"

I smiled. "Perfect."

I will never turn them down. Never. They are second only to Damon for my favorite thing ever.

So let's recap: I have officially signed on to become a vampire for all eternity; Damon wants to feed on my blood (which I'm totally not opposed to); Stefan killed our buzz; Damon almost killed Stefan; Stefan offered me stoup, which doesn't exist; I'm getting pop tarts.

Life is good.

**Bonnie's POV**

"Go away, you stupid little kid."

Was I being rude? Absolutely. Did I give a damn? Hell, no. Jeremy had popped up out of literally nowhere when I was walking back to Stefan's house and wouldn't leave me alone, insisting that 'I should not have to walk home alone'.

Which made no sense, because I'm older than him and he was going to have to walk home alone. Maybe I could get Damon to scare him, just enough that he wouldn't come back.

"I don't think so. These streets aren't so same, Bonnie."

He had no idea just how true that was.

"Then why are you here?"

"Didn't I just answer that question?"

"Well…sort of. But it opened another one."

Beat that, you little bitch.

"Not my fault I'm not old enough to know every question to every single answer of life."

Damn you, Jeremy! You little doofus!

I sighed. "Jeremy?"

"What?'

That must be stoner-talk for, 'yes'.

"I would really appreciate it if you would leave me alone for, like, five minutes. I'm just not interested. So I would appreciate it if you would respect my wishes."

He stared at me blankly for, like, literally a minute and a half. "No can do, Bonnie. Let's walk."

Without thinking about it I kicked him in the leg as hard as I could and he howled in pain, hobbling to keep up with me as I ran through the night.

"Catch me if you can!" I yelled.

"I'm going to."

We raced all the way home, neck and neck the entire time. He eventually won despite his injury, which really pissed me off.

"Good race, Bonnie."

I slapped his hand away when he held it out to shake.

"No, it wasn't."

"Sure, it was!"

I slammed the door shut in his face and moped all the way downstairs, ignoring Damon's snickering at me. He said some unkind words to Jeremy, which I guess got him to go away, and then I spent the rest of the night trying to seduce Stefan.

Oh, well. Tomorrow is the continuation of the circle of life.

**AN: I hope you liked it! And, PS, Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays to everyone! Hope you're all well! Please leave a review if you have the time. **

**Lots of love,**

**Evie**


	15. A Note

Hi, everyone,

Wow. I'm not really even sure how to begin this note, because I feel like we've all read the dreaded 'this story is now indefinitely on hiatus' note a thousand times…

Well, let's just start with the good news. This story is NOT over. I can't say exactly when I'll be able to start writing again, and I can't promise that it will be soon, per se, but I can say that I definitely _will _be writing again. This story is full of characters that will write this story themselves if I don't so it for them!

I don't even know how to express how sorry I am for not updating or letting anyone know why I wasn't updating for _so long. _When I started reading fanfiction, I swore to myself that I would never be one of those annoying people who don't update their stories for forever, because it just seems disrespectful to everyone who takes the time to review and even read their story. But now that I've been in those 'annoying' peoples' shoes, I can see things a bit differently.

I don't want to get into specifics, because I don't want to bore any of you with details and because it's just not safe to put your personal life out onto the internet. Let's just say that this past…year, really, has been incredibly trying and difficult.

So for a little while, I'm just writing out little fun stories that will be up soon; because not only have the things going on in my life made it literally impossible to update, but I also lost interest in TVD for a while. I think it was a combination of a lot of different things, including some strange character development on the show that I didn't agree with, along with stress. But fear not, because I've got my TVD mojo back and I'm also going to be working on the next chapter.

I cannot even express in words how grateful I am for every single person who has ever taken the time to read my little story. The feedback I have gotten is more than I ever expected! Every review I get makes my entire day (that is, on the rare chance that I actually get to check my email…). And I am truly sorry if me not updating for so long made anyone feel like I'm ungrateful or disrespectful to my readers, because that's far from the truth!

So thanks to everyone who took the time to read this note. I hope to be putting up chapters soon, but like I said, I can't make any promises. But I'm going to try my best to find time!

Thanks, everyone!

-Evie 3


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